


Under Blue Neon

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon, Drama, Future, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-18
Updated: 2005-05-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 00:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Justin leaves Pittsburg and Brian, but five years later the impact of Justin's autobiography to Brian's life brings back old memories and feelings once more to the surface. Post season four.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Author note: All italics in the fic will either be extracts from the novel (in the fic) Under Blue Neon, or memories of Brian and Justin together. 

Character of Tod is an OMC, not Tod from the show, random coincidence with the name. 

Also, please could all reviews strictly be to do with this fic. Otherwise, please read, review and enjoy. :)

* * *

“Brian?” His secretary, fucked if he could remember her name, stepped into his office. Brian gave her a hold on gesture, taking his feet of the desk. 

 

“That sounds great Freddie; just get the prints to the goddamn publishing department before there’s another cock up.” Brian finished, and then pressed the end button on the phone. He looked up.

 

“Yes, um…” He scouted around for the name but came up blank.

 

“Mary.” She said almost angrily. She was new this one; the other had gone on pregnancy leave. Seeing basically competent, he gave her a smile. She placed a package on his desk, her heels clicking on the wooden floor as she crossed his office. He gave the package a blank look, not opening it.

 

“It came from some publishing house in New York.” Mary trailed off as the frown on Brian’s face deepened. He tore open the yellow envelope, not bothering to read the thick black letters on the envelope, and tipped out the contents. It was a book, a new copy, corners un-battered. He glanced up at Mary who was still hovering and gave her a pointed look. 

 

“Could you hold my calls? I might go to an early lunch.” Brian said, distracted. His thumb touched the black cover of the book warily, as though it might be a bomb. She backed out of there quickly, closing the door behind her silently. 

 

The front cover seemed normal enough. Shiny black with a black and white photo printed on the front, made to look like a Polaroid. A model with a cigarette on his lips, just looking up at the camera, dark and threatening looking alleys behind him. Brian ran his hand over the scrawly blue title, and sighed.

 

“Under Blue Neon?” He murmured almost laughingly, but his eyes remained perplexed. 

\- - - - -

 

Brian turned off the ignition to the car, and shifted in his seat. 

 

“Shall we go up?” The trick murmured. He glanced up at the apartment block, still the same apartment block, and Brian squinted. Yep, there was a light on. He reached into the glove box and pulled out a cigarette. The trick watched him light it, and involuntarily licked his lips in anticipation. Brian took a few drags then tossed it out the window. It flared and then died on the damp Pittsburgh streets.

 

“What’s wrong with right here?” Brian said, his eyes dulled half with drink and half with lust. He grabbed the tricks shirt, and pulled him into rough kiss. The trick tasted like cheap beer, the same cheap beer he’d bought Brian before he propositioned him. He would have been about twenty five, blonde in a jockey way, with a stray lock that always seemed to require sweeping off his face. His eyes were this sort of electric blue, not that Brian noticed. Brian had just discovered a belly button ring, and grinned as he gave it a little and probably painful twist.

 

Somehow they ended up in the back of the car, an awkward twisted movement transferring them from the front to the back without breaking contact. Brian twisted the trick onto his back, sitting up sightly so he could undo his own pants. The trick’s were already loitering around his ankle. Brian tore the condom packet with his finger, his concentration replacing his smile. He took his time, he tended to like longer languorous fucks these days, and no one seemed to be complaining. Perhaps his goddamn libido was slowing down after all. 

 

The trick shouted a curse as he came, and Brian smiled in satisfaction, his only thought as he came back to himself that he would have to clean the fucking upholstery again. Not fucking in the loft was starting to be a real bitch. Not that he couldn’t… but he liked not having sullen glares for the three days afterwards.

 

He pulled out, and leaning against the tricks back, did up his pants again. The trick rolled underneath him, and with considerable awkwardness, moved into sitting. Brian lit another cigarette, winding down the window. 

 

“Nice car.” The Trick said, adjusting his shirt.

 

“Thanks.” Brian murmured sarcastically, already bored by the encounter. The trick gave him a dull look with Brian didn’t see because he was staring out the window. 

 

“Look, I’ll give you my number. Maybe we can do it again sometime.” The trick waited for some sort of reaction but got none. He patted his pockets and pulled out a matches packet, the thin kind you get from bars. He pulled the lid of his pen with his teeth, and scrawled down the number. Brian took it, he never rejected matches, you never know when they might come in handy, and frowned for a moment.

 

“What’s your name again anyway?”

 

“Justin.” The trick said, running a hand through his hair as he checked his appearance in the driver’s mirror, which had been knocked out of place in their desperation to get into the back seat. Brian let out a soft laugh. 

 

“Well, Justin,” He said with a certain emphasis. “Would you mind getting the fuck out of my car?” He said quietly. The trick raised his hands, and opened the car door.

 

“Hey, don’t have to get rude. Just give me a call if you want to do it again.”

 

“It wasn’t good enough to require an encore.” Brian murmured, and blew out a puff of smoke.

 

“Whatever.” The car door slammed, and Brian slowly extracted himself from the car. Fuck the upholstery; he’d leave it too tomorrow. Glancing up at the lights in his apartment, he locked the car, and once inside the apartment block, took the stairs two at a time.

 

The TV was on when he got in, the blue lights flickering across the dark lounge room. The light in the bedroom was on, and Brian tossed his keys on the counter. He could see the slumped figure on the couch, and checked his watch. Fuck, two thirty. The poor bastard had waited up for him again. 

 

He made his way over to the couch, and placed a hand on the sleeping head, pausing to brush that hair just once, before moving on. The man stirred, and stretched, and Brian collapsed on the couch next to him. 

 

“What the fuck are you watching?” Brian said, grimacing at the screen.

 

“Nothing. Nothing, just waiting for you.” The man repeated, stretching. He leant to give Brian a soft kiss on the mouth. “How was the club?” 

 

“It was good.” Brian said uncommitted. He got up off the couch. “I’m gunna go to bed.” Brian kicked of his shoes, already pulling his shirt over his head. For a moment he stood by the light switch, and then turned.

 

“I’m gunna read for a while, so can you switch of the lights when you come to bed Tod?” Brian asked, leaning against the wall. Tod nodded, his dark brown hair submerging into the background, the whites of his eyes seeming almost non-existence. The blue light of the television ran shadows along Tod’s skin, which was darker then Brian’s no matter how much Brian tanned. Brian nodded to himself, and then went into the bedroom, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

 

In bed now, he sat for a moment, his hand tapping on the book. That damn fucking book. God, he didn’t know if he were ready to open it, to open up all that came with it. Accusations were a given, blame expected, but what would be worse, were what it would bring back in him. 

 

The memories, they already seemed to hang heavy in the air, though they had never really left the loft. At work, or with Michael, it wasn’t so bad. But here, he could nearly hear the boy’s voice. See his figure on the bed, hands clenched around the pillow. A million sighs. 

 

Brian closed his eyes for a moment.

 

No apologies. No explanations. No regrets.

 

Right?

 

And then he opened Justin’s book.


	2. Under Blue Neon

_We’d all like to think that our lives are a smooth path, like a line drawn on paper, white against black, undeniable. Perhaps detouring here and there, but un-breaking, and drawing us along with out explanation, without choices, barely giving you time to breath. And you just say yes. That’s what it was like with him. One moment, one breathy consent, and I lost all my choices. I knew where I was going though, I was going with him._

_Maybe I should explain something about myself. I’m a faggit, a fudgepacking, ballsucking, arselicking little fairy, and I never was going to be anything else…_

__

 

“What are you reading?” Tod slid into bed beside Brian, trying to read over his shoulder. Brian snapped the book shut. 

 

“None of your fucking business.” Brian said with a reproving shake of the head. Tod laughing. He gave Brian a suggestive smile.

 

“Where are your glasses gramps? Gunna read to me in bed?” Brian grinned, his tongue inadvertently obvious behind his teeth, like that of a serpents, appearing momentarily as a warning. Of what was to come next. 

 

He tossed the book onto the bedside table.

 

“You fucking like that wouldn’t you.” Brian murmured, as he yanked the mans head into an embrace.

 

“Abs-fucking-lutely.” Tod muttered against Brian’s lips as he turned of the light with one hand.

 

“No more sex and the city for you. You think your some kind of Mister Big?”

 

“I just like thinking you're like Carrie.”

 

“Roll over. You gunna fucking pay for that.”

 

Brian woke up suddenly, his eyes opening with panic. For a moment he lay there disorientated, and then relaxed back against the pillow. He pushed Tod’s arm off him, and pulled back the sheets, climbing out of bed. He stood in the moonlight naked for a moment, waiting for his heart to beat a little slower.

 

He touching his shoulder as though to check that the beating in his dream somehow hadn’t transferred onto his body. Goddamn it, the dreams never really went away, though sometimes they would disappear for a while. When things got calm. 

 

He wondered if they had disappeared for Justin, wherever he was. He glanced at Tod, and taking the book with him, went to his desk. He flicked on his lamp, and lighting one of the joints he kept in the tin box in his draw, started to read.

\- - - - 

“What is that book?” Lindsey said, leaning against the office door. Brian looked up startled, dropping it to the desk. Lindsey bustled in, placing down a sandwich on the table. Gus ran in not moments later, his fingers covered in some kind of brown muck. He ran straight into Brian’s arms, first being mindful enough to rub his hands all over Brian’s expensive pants, and then clutched his tie beaming.

 

“Nice.” Brian murmured, touching the boys head, and finding that equally sticky, wiping his hands on his pants. Lindsey, while Brian was distracted, picked up the book. She turned it over to the back and read the blurb.

 

“Every time I’ve seen you this week you’ve been reading the damn thing.” 

 

“Maybe I just like good literature.” Brian said sarcastically, hefting his son in his arms. This was nearly too much for him, he grunted with the effort. Lindsey gave him a bemused smile.

 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you read anything since college.” She said thoughtfully, and then discarded the subject. “I was wondering if you could take Gus tonight?”

 

“Uber dike can’t take him?” Brian said cheerily. Lindsey tisked, and moving around to Brian’s side of the desk, covered Gus’s ears.

 

“Brian, what did we say about swearing in front of Gus?” She murmured reprovingly.

 

“You didn’t stop to think that him sleeping as a baby in a room with his mother eating pussy three times a week didn’t have more adverse effects on him?” Brian, in the same low tone, whispered back. He placed Gus back on the floor. He knelt down beside him.

 

“You’re getting too old to be picked up anymore. How old are you now?” Brian asked as though he didn’t know. Gus managed nearly what was a dry look, except he giggled. Hell, there was something in there that was Brian Kinneyish after all. 

 

“Daddy. You know I’m nine.” Brian looked up over his head.

 

“Fuck. Daddy. Nine. I am getting old.” Lindsey sighed.

 

“Think how I feel.” Then she smiled almost evilly. “Soon you’ll be hitting that big four…”

 

“You say it and I’ll kill you.” Brian pointed a figure at her warningly. Lindsey patted him on the back comfortingly.

 

“You still got a few good years in you.”

 

“Anyway, I can’t take him. I got work.” Brian said, now that the niceties were over and he was feeling nearly two hundred years older. Lindsey frowned.

 

“You’re the boss. I just need two hours. Come on Bri.”

 

“I can’t. Something important came up.” He held up his hands defensively. “For real this time.”

 

“Brian…”

 

“Fine.” He growled. He hit the speaker button. “Mary. Cancel my appointments, till three. Something more important came up.” He spat through his teeth. Lindsey clapped her hands, a silent bravo.

 

“I’ll be back.”

 

“You better fucking be. Someone round here has to pay the bills.”

 

“Brian, watch the cursing.”

 

He leant back in his chair. Gus was being amused by the secretaries, they’d found him something to do, junk to eat, things to colour. Brian boot on the desk, and then, though he had been fighting the desire, he picked up the book again.

 

He knew what the world would say when they read it. He knew controversy that the book would generate. The scenes that would be most talked about. The anonymous fuck in an art gallery, with his mum outside, that would be one for sure. The wanking off the high school jock was a bit of a shocker too. The graphicness was what was so shocking, the rawness of it all. 

 

The seduction of the seventeen year old.

 

Brian touched his forehead, remembering it all, the images so vivid, yet now recorded by Justin, the memories changed because he knew what Justin had been thinking.

_  
He groans when he enters me. This deep, animal groan. I can feel the sound shuddering through my skin. Above us, the mirror he erected the night before, in a moment of manic elation, seems to shudder with us. I remember being so afraid that it was going to fall on us, that I couldn’t take my eyes of it. I guess that’s the point of it. So while he bit into the flesh on my shoulder, his hair brushing my cheek, I could only see my face._

_That was the look that he saw. The gasping, writhing teenager, groaning and gasping at his movements, completely enthralled in that moment, that moment of flesh and pain, so perfectly captured in the motion of him pulling my skin with his teeth. Pleasure and pain, with him they were never far from one another._

_What he didn’t know, what he couldn’t have seen was the desperation in me. While I might have twisted and turned beneath his touch, he didn’t bother or couldn’t decode those moans. But I knew what they were._

_Inside, all that I could think was: did he love me? That I needed to be loved, I needed his love, that I needed him to love me. Love me, love me, love me, that’s what I was begging him with my hands that dug into his back, my feet clenched, my whole body screamed it as it contorted beneath him._

_When he came, his face flashing with a wonder as he found that perfect place, that sanctuary, for just moment that he always seemed to fear would be taken away, that’s he would say it. That’s when he would say I love you._

_Or would curse. One of the two._

_In those moments, when he lost control, that he would consent to me, give what I needed just as he needed those expensive clothes, that devil-may-care attitude. It was like I had to extract those words from him, as though he was a torture victim and that was his crime. He would give them up to me begrudgingly, and then deny they ever existed, take them back, and make me drive his confession out of him again._

__

“Michael?” Ben called out from the bathroom. Michael was lying naked across the bed on his stomach, reading a comic. Ben wandered into the room, only wearing his boxers. He was in the process of shaving, half his face still covered in shaving cream. Michael looked up casually.

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.” Ben said, his face as it always was, livid with the thoughts he couldn’t hide.

 

“If this is about Hunter using the house while we’re on holiday, I’ve already said no.” Michael said smiling. He got up, and wrapped his arms around Ben. “Look, he’d just have a whole lot of heterosexual sex in the house, and on our bed, and I just…” Michael pulled a face, but he was joking. 

 

“Has he got a new girlfriend?” Ben asked warily.

 

“No. But you remember being that age. You only thought about one thing.” Michael grinning again. He ran his finger through the shaving cream and then touched Ben’s nose with it. Ben smiled, crinkling his nose. “In fact, you still only think about one thing.” Ben wrapped his arms around Michael’s waist.

 

“It’s a bit hard not to, when you insist on lying around the house naked.” Michael pulled a face.

 

“Its Sunday, what’s the point of getting dressed?” Michael said, and Ben pulled a mocking face as he leant in to kiss him, getting shaving cream all over Michaels face.

 

“What indeed?” Brian said cheerily from the doorway. Ben pulled a false smile and the pair of them sighed. 

 

“Later?” Michael said consolingly as Ben headed back into the bathroom. 

 

“Later.” Ben said, giving Brian a nod. “Morning Brian. Still got that key I see.” Brian rolled his eyes, and tossed himself down on the bed, as Michael hurriedly pulled on a dressing gown, wiping the shaving cream off on the sleave of it. Brian watched him with bored indifference.

 

“Hope I wasn’t spoiling a moment between you and the teach.” Brian said charmingly. Michael shot him a dirty look, and ignored him.

 

“Don’t you have better things to be doing? What’s Tod doing the morning?” Michael asked angrily. Brian shrugged.

 

“I don’t know. I left him watching TV.” He gave Michael a slightly pissy look. “We might live together, but I don’t want to spend my every goddamn minute with the guy.”

 

“Hey, you’re the one that asked him to move in.” Michael said, pulling on his jeans. Brian fell back against the pillows.

 

“I know. All those pills must have fried my brain.”

 

“Breakfast?” Michael asked now that he was fully dressed. “Come on, we haven’t gone to the diner in ages.” Brian gave an almost bitter smile. Great. The diner was just the place he wanted to go to. So many great fucking memories.

__

_I can’t hold the coffee pot anymore. It jumps and shakes beneath my hand, and it won’t proves to me just how fucking useless I am. I can’t even control the goddamn coffee pot, that’s my life._

_At night I dream of the man who beat me to a bloody pulp, so that my head nearly caved it. I imagine touching my own head, and it is smooth and soft, like the insides of a watermelon._

__

Ben was sitting in the backseat, trying to catch onto the conversation between Michael and Brian and failing miserably. He felt like he had when Michael and Hunter talked comic books, but he knew that this relationship was at a whole other level. With Brian, Ben had come to accept that he would always be sitting backseat. He touched the back of Michael’s neck affectionately, and Michael craned his head around to give him a smile. 

 

“Do you have any gum?” Michael said with a yawn. He’d barely gotten dressed before Brian had hurried them out the door. Brian had been agitated all week actually. 

 

“Yeah, check the glove box.” Brian said without thinking. Then he winced as he remembered, as Michael opened it, pulling out not only a packet of gum, but also that goddamn book. 

 

“What’s this?” Michael said, his usual illiterate self. “Under Blue Neon?” Ben shifted in the backseat uncomfortably, and so did Brian.

 

“That’s that book on gay life I was telling you about last night. It’s quite…” Ben paused for a moment. “Controversial.” Ben said warily. Michael smiled, and glanced over at Brian. He flipped over the book and read the blurb on the back. Then he opened the book to a page at random, and read a few lines out loud.

 

“Henry was one of those men who got everything he wanted, because he was smarter, faster and hotter then anyone else. I would learn that later, but then, at that moment, under the dim street light with a million people in hyper coloured costumes and places to be, all I knew was that I wanted him. And that he wanted me.” Michael pulled a face. “Well, it sounds to me like that’s just another hook up on Friday night, eh Brian?” He nudged Brian’s ribs. “Oh. The controversy of gay life.” He laughed again. “Wouldn’t have thought you’d be reading this, Brian. Hell you could tell that story better then any other.”

 

“Well, you know me. Like to keep myself up to date.” Brian said, putting on his sunnies. He glanced back at Ben in the back seat, his face unreadable. Michael was oblivious to the obvious tension in the car.

 

“Whose the writer? Do you know him Ben?” He said, tossing the book back to Ben. Michael put on a haughty voice. “Ben knows all the elite members of society, don’t ya Ben?” He said jokingly.

 

“Something like that.” Ben murmured. “No, the authors an unknown. Everyone at the university is pretty sure that it’s a pseudonym, which tends to happen with this kind of books.”

 

“A what?” Michael said, confused.

 

“It’s not the authors real name sweetie.” Ben said slightly condescendingly.

 

“I guess people find it easier revealing their dirty laundry when they don’t have to put their name on it.” Brian said, and then turned on the radio.

 

The diner seemed a lot flatter once Debbie had stopped working there. She had just gotten too tired and too overworked, and Michael had the money to step in. After all those years of supporting him, he decided it was time to support her. 

 

Brian was leaning on the counter, chatting up one of the waiters. Michael finished his breakfast, and glanced at Ben.

 

“You okay?” He said quickly. He leant across the table, and put his hand on Bens. “You’ve been quiet all morning.” Ben gave him a quick comforting smile.

 

“You know me. I can’t keep up with you and Brian.” He said jokingly. But while Michael may not be an intellectual, he wasn’t a fool. He pushed the subject.

 

“No, seriously Ben, what’s wrong?” He was worried now. Ben glanced over at Brian, and, wincing, leant forward.

 

“Michael, there’s something you should know.”

“What?” Michael asked.

 

“That book. Under Blue Neon?” Ben said lowly. Michael looked confused again.

 

“What about it?”

 

“I’ve read it. And I pretty damn certain it’s about Brian.”


	3. Under Blue Neon

_Henry’s sunnies blocked his eyes from view, but I could tell he loved this moment. This moment with just the two of us, him driving me to school, delivering me like I was some important package._  
That’s when I told him I was thinking about going out of state to Uni. I wanted to see his reaction so bad, that it nearly hurt. That nonchalant shrug after that initial tension, the slight throw in the usual banter.  
“You’ll miss me.” 

__

 

The beginning parts of the book were easier to read. They were about Justin, about his family. About coming out. That was easier. Brian bore through the retelling of the beating, of Ethan, of his cancer.

 

But it was the break up, the arguments, and the end that he knew was coming that he knew he would find more and more painful. But to read back his treatment of Justin, and they were only handfuls of moments out of thousands, to read it back, was nearly intolerable. 

_  
We were in an alley behind this bar. Henry’s hand was on my dick, I could feel the warmth of it. At the time, I couldn’t believe it. I thought for sure after what had happened the other night, the fight, that Henry would never touch me again. I’d lain awake all night, staring up at the ceiling of the room that had once been Toby’s, imaging how Henry would cut me down, some cruel comment, that careless, indifferent glance._

_And yet here we were, me so close to cuming, Henry’s fingers working overtime. Henry grinned in that fierce, almost violent way he did sometimes when he was most turned on, almost with an animalistic quiet. Predator. As through he was feeding on my pleasure, my groans and gasps. He knelt down to swallow my cum, and then with that same efficiency that the episode had started with, zipped me back up, careful not to catch any of the pubic hairs._

_“Do you want me to say it?” He asked suddenly, his lips still wet from where he’d licked them. And from where I’d been. I smiled warily._

_“Say what?” I remember asking, almost laughingly, dizzy from the post orgasm. God it felt so good, being so close to him. Henry looked away, and then back again his eyes unreadable._

_“Those. Three. Magic. Words.” He pronounced slowly. I felt my smile fading, the comfort evaporating. I think my mouth must have fallen open._

_“I’m sorry about the other night, it won’t happen again. I won’t say it again…” I said desperate, apologising already, trying to fight what I knew instinctually was coming. But Henry stilled my words._

_“Do you want me to?” He asked again. And I, knowing that it was a trap, but falling into it none-the-less, the lamb lying down for the wolf. I nodded._

_“Yes.” I whispered. He smiled cruelly. I remember thinking, how cruel that smile could be. No one could smile as cruelly as he could. No one could do a lot of things as well as he could, and he had cruelty down to a fine art. He leant forward, his lips only millimetres from mine._

_“Quick. Efficient. Pleasurable.” He whispered each word lovingly into the air which vibrated against my lips. It made me tremble, how the night air seemed to join his mocking. Laughter pulled at Henry’s’ lips, but he didn’t say anything else, just turning, heading towards the back door of Woody’s that we had stumbled out in that moment of frenzied anticipation only moments before. I tidied my shirt, trying not to be overwhelmed by the stinging in my eyes._

_“Fuck you Henry.” I yelled as Henry reached the door. Henry’s hand slid up the aging wood, pulling it open._

_“Another three words I like to hear.” He said over his shoulder, leaving me in the cold._

__

And the other passages, they seemed never-ending. And Brian remembered, too, what it had felt like. He read Justin describe giving him a hand job, and he could remember how those white fingers felt curled around his cock, cold from the night air, against his so warm skin. So warm, for Justin, just for him. From the dancing at Babylon, from the heat of the back room, but still, just for Justin, that true heat, that burned his body.

__

_We barely made it through the door. Henry had me on the floor seconds after we had stumbled through it, the clang of the metal loud in the quiet night. He wouldn’t even let me close the door, pinning my hands against the wooden floorboards, slightly over my head, so that my skin stretched thin over my ribs._

_He waited for a moment there, his eyes dark on mine, his hands running down the side of my exposed chest._

_“You make me want to,” And then he bit his lip. After two years of being together, on and off, I thought I knew him. And looking back, I would say this was the moment when I knew he knew. About Richard, about me wanting more, about everything. But what crime is it to want more? And for me, more was always love. I wanted more of Henry, and by that, I meant love. I needed it, it was that vital food group he had denied me the two years we had been together, and sometimes I felt like it was oxygen he was denying me._

_And Richard gave it to me. It was a pathetic supplement for the real thing, but air is air. And love is love. Even if it’s the wrong love, Richards love was love. We need it. I need it._

_“I make you want to what?” I remember how cool his skin felt beneath my hand, the slight stubble, how his lip shuddered._

_“You make me want to fuck you everywhere. In the kitchen, on the floor boards, on the fucking kitchen stove,” He whispered, and kissed me. I wondered, even as I kissed him, if this was love. If this was his love. And if this was his love, could I live on that type of love?_

__

Michael propped himself up on the pillows, barely even glancing up at Ben entered the room. Ben pulled a face.

 

“Are you still reading that thing?” Michael looked up angrily.

 

“Of course I am. Will you listen to this, that fucking conceited little shit?” He was on page one hundred and two and he began to read out loud.

 

“Toby was one of those guys that never really grows up and blames everyone else for the fact. He still thinks him and Henry are twelve, riding their bikes around, the endless summer stretching over their entire lives.” Michael stopped reading and looked up at Ben, his eyebrows raised. “Well? Don’t you think that’s not his fucking place?” Ben ran a hand through his gelled hair and adjusted his glasses.

 

“Michael, it’s his novel. He writes it as he sees fit. And that parts not that bad.” Ben said quietly. But Michael was sulky now. 

 

Because of course he’d read the other passages. The worse ones. 

__

_I kept pushing him, and he knew I was pushing him. But I wanted to hear him say it; for once admit what he wouldn’t. I couldn’t bear it in him, this hypercritical attitude to Toby. For fucks sake, with everyone else he would tolerate no bullshit, but with Toby, no it was a different world._

_For as much as Henry said he never cared what anyone thought, he never crossed Toby if he could manage it. It was like his fucking blind spot._

_I guess I was jealous that it wasn’t me. Because I thought then, and sometimes I still do, that there was a reason for his blindness._

_I picked it up again in the bedroom, tossing myself down on the bed, watching Henry undress, hanging his expensive jeans back up on the hanger. We had been at dinner, and while we had been hot and heavy at Sal’s, barely able to stop touching under the table, and me sitting on his lap in the lounge room, now we couldn’t seem to be bothered to start anything._

_Well, he couldn’t anyway. I never could really get enough of him, but I’m sure he got sick of me._

_“Don’t you understand he’s jealous of you? You let him get away with so much, you let him put you down the whole time. You let the whole lot of them.” I said reproachfully, suddenly angry. Angry at his stupid friends for not understanding him, not like I did, and not seeing the real guy behind all the bullshit. Well, behind many many many deep layers of complex bullshit, defence mechanisms and selfishness._

_“He’s not jealous of me Jason.” He said quietly, pulling on his trackies. He looked down at me for a moment, pausing what he was doing, his eyes questioning. But I wanted him to say it._

_“If he’s not jealous of you, then what is he?”_

_“He’s not jealous.” He repeated, very carefully positioning himself over me. He grabbed my hands playfully, but sternly._

_“He is.”_

_“He’s not fucking jealous of me alright? He’s in…” He broke off and shook his head. He turned me round, so that I was on my stomach, pulling the elastic of my pants down, one hand on my arse._

_“He’s in love with you isn’t he?” I said, half turning beneath him. He pushed me back down, his teeth very close to my neck. I knew what his fingers were doing, and I waited, but I wasn’t done yet. “Isn’t he?”_

_“Yes. Alright? Yes.”_

_“And part of you is in love with him.” I said, feeling him push into me. I gasped against the pillow, my hands clenching the sheets._

_He hissed in response. Conversation closed._  
  
“Brian?” Michael knocked on the office door. Brian looked up, and gave a smile. Then he checked his watch.

 

“Your half an hour early Mikey.”

 

“I know. I have to talk to you about something.” And he held up the book. Brian leant back in his chair and motioned for Michael to sit. He rubbed his hand over his temple, and pushed a few pieces of paper from the desk in front of him, sliding them carefully into the draw.

 

“What about it?” He said calmly. Michael looked completely affronted. HE couldn’t believe Brian had kept this from him. He couldn’t believe that Brian was so nonchalant about this… betrayal was the only word he could think off.

 

“It’s about you. It’s all about you.” He spluttered.

 

“No.” Brian rested one elbow on the arm of his chair, tilting his head. “Its about him. His life. Him.”

 

Justin.

 

“But you’ve read it. How can you say that? The things he says, and the things you,” Brian cut him off.

 

“I got it first hand Michael; I didn’t read anything in the book that shocked me.” He gave a sad smile, and started going through his mail. He glanced up after a moment though, as though concluding some business.

 

“I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell Tod though.”

 

“Why?” Michael asked, eyes suddenly wary. Brian frowned.

 

“I don’t want him reading it.”

 

“But he knows about Justin doesn’t he?”

 

“Let’s just say I don’t want any comparisons drawn.” Michael nodded, and sighed. He shook his head, as though having an argument in his mind.

 

“And it’s fucking weak of him to use a, a, thingy. To be fucking anonymous.” Michael said after a moment. Brian gave a soft laugh.

 

“Doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s been outed. Again.’ Michael looked confused. “His real identity got leaked to the press. It was in yesterday’s paper. A whole little autobiography. Like superman?” He clarified, using an example Michael was most likely to understand. But Michael almost seemed to ignore the information. He stared in front of him, and then his eyes flicked to Brian’s.

 

“It can’t have been a fun read for you Brian.”

 

“Well, what can I say?” He gave a little shrug, his eyes sad. “He didn’t see things my way, and the book just proved it. Are we going to go for lunch or what?” He stood up, picking up his coat. Michael nodded dazed, slowly getting to his feet. He touched Brian’s arm as they reached the door, and Brian nearly froze at the contact. Old habit.

 

“You did love him. He was wrong.”

 

__

_He sat on the side of the bed with his back to me. His beautiful back. But now it was darkened by shadows, and I couldn’t think of any words which would allow me to reach out and touch it. I was no longer the kid who would strip down to his underwear, sleeping on some man he barely knows couch, who knew with that certainty that if he could just get into bed next to that body, that beautiful body, then everything would be alright in the world._

_Even then, we’d had the sex to fall back on. We’d always had that. I think we’d had sex as many times when Henry was angry as when he was in a good mood. Notice I say in a good mood. I’m no longer sure of what exactly makes Henry happy, and what’s just a show._

_“You didn’t force me into a relationship Jason.” He said quietly. I stared at the ceiling, averting my eyes just as his neck turned. He must have seen the movement, but I didn’t want to see his expression. It was so defeated recently._

_“I know. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to.” I said sulkily._

_“No.” He said it with a sigh of disbelieve. He shifted, and I felt his body lie down next to me. His hands touched my hips, just lightly, and I turned towards him, out faces so close I could feel his breath on my skin. His hand ran up and down my arm, and I could feel my hairs standing on end. For him. “You make me want. Do you understand me? You make me want.”_

_I wanted to ask him what I made him want. Because though I understood, and god I understood how difficult it was for him to say just that, I needed to hear it. I so dearly wanted him to dispel the idea that I couldn’t shake from my mind these days._

_That he didn’t love me; rather had just become accustomed to me._

_I caused a need, reminded him of everything he’d never had and couldn’t have. I made him want._

_And I wasn’t seventeen any more. That wasn’t enough._

_I might make him want, but my want was so immense. I wanted it all. Not just his flesh, which to him was such a cheap yet highly prized commodity. I wanted him, all of him. And I think that’s when I knew. That I was greedy. That I was spoilt. And that I would always want more then he could give._

__

Brian read those words again, his fingers tracing them. So this was what Michael had read, and all the other passages, all the other intimate moments that now were made for the public. Who else would read this book, and think that they knew him? Debbie? Would she be surprised by Justin’s appraisal of him? Perhaps she would see it as proof that she had been right all this years. About everything.

 

Brian remembered that night, and how huge the bed had seemed. That was what had been the biggest effort, moving to lie next to him. He knew how much the boy was hurting, it had seemed like the air was full with Justin’s unshed tears. God he hated it. Hated hurting him, by being who he was. Nothing hurt worse in the world.

 

God, he had wanted to say sorry so badly. He didn’t think he would ever stop being sorry. For who he was. For all his deficiencies. He had wanted to stroke Justin’s hair, and say sorry for how hard it was loving a arsehole called Brian Kinney. 

You make me want. God, even now, he knew how terribly they had failed to express the enormity of what he had needed to say.

 

Justin had been well… he might as well have started fucking the fiddler again. Because he’d started a relationship with someone else. It was Hollywood, and he was young and hot and possibly going to be famous. And for once he was doing something he loved. He was designing stuff again, and it didn’t matter if his hand was fucked, he was making art, except in movies. 

 

But it was stupid to say that.

 

To blame it on Hollywood. Because, hell the kid deserved some fortune and a bit of luck after all the shit he’d gone through in the last four years. 

 

And for a moment, when Brian had asked him that question, asked him to move in with him, as though it was as an insignificant change as pulling down those fucking lights, he really had thought that he was over it. Over the panic he had gone through with the cancer.

 

But then the fear, while not the cancer, came back tenfold.

 

That Justin would leave him.

 

And the funny thing was, he did.

 

_  
“Fuck you,” He hissed. I looked around the apartment, and I felt like crying. The loft was torn to pieces. Henry had tipped over the couch, he’d slashed the cushions. I could see the picture of the naked man on the counter, that too had been slashed. There were smashed glasses, smashed plates, and I dared not go into the bedroom. My clothing didn’t matter, but I’d assumed he’d hacked that up too. I didn’t want to see our bed, covered in my torn up clothing._

_“Henry,” I murmured, dropping my bag. He stood up, pulling himself off the floor, swaying, a whiskey bottle in hand. He pointed a finger at me._

_“What was it you said?” I gave him a bewildered look. He growled, burying his hands in his face momentarily and then throwing the bottle against the wall. I flinched as it smashed. He came closer still. “What was it you fucking said?”_

_“That you didn’t love me. Not like he did.” I whispered, my eyes closed. I could fel how close he was to my face._

_“Not like he did.” He repeated, and moved away. When I opened my eyes he was in the kitchen, pulling out another bottle of alcohol. “I think I hear violins, don’t you?” He said dryly, taking a swig. “And you tell me over the fucking phone.” He yelled the last two words. “That you’re leaving me. For him. Over the fucking phone.”_

_“I’m sorry.” I had my arms folded across my chest, but I could see he saw through the act. He saw how terrified I was. I think he hates that. He hates the idea that I might think he would ever hit me. And he never would. I know that like I know how to breathe._

_“What about you then? He loves you better then me.” He said the word better with such mocking it made me flinch. “But do love him? Huh? Is your love for him better then being with me?” I noticed how he still managed to avoid addressing the point. That I loved Henry, and that somewhere, maybe he loved me. But god, sometimes I didn’t feel it. If you can’t feel his love, can’t see it, can’t taste it, then sometimes you need to hear it._

_God I needed to hear it._

_He put the bottle down._

_“Does he fuck better then I do?” He asked viciously.._

_“That’s not the point.” I whispered._

_“Answer the fucking question.” He said, and came towards me again. “When he goes down on you, is it better then me? When he’s inside you, do you forget me? Forget me, you first fuck,” He put his hand on my cheek as he said this. I shivered. He would always have this, always have this power. No matter where I am, who I’m with, even if I was seventy and hadn’t seen Henry in years, I think I will always react to Henry like that, in that moment. All my will power stripping away, and I saw him again, from under that lamp post, his grin as he came towards me. The moment when I thought, yes. I choose this. This street. This life. This man._

_“No, its not.”_

_And standing there in the loft four years later, under his touch, it was as if everything else faded away. Rick, the movie, the fights. Everything. He pulled me into his hard kiss, pushing his way into my mouth so furiously as if marking his territory. He pulled my t-shirt over my head which was still slick with the sweat from the plane, and pushed me to the floor. I closed my eyes. Closed them to the state of the loft, and to everything but Henry’s tongue on mine, his hands on my belt, and the sound of the condom packet._

_It’s strange._

_There always has to be a last. The last time you wear an outfit. The last time you listen to a cd. The last time you smoke a cigarette. The last time you kiss someone. At the time, you won’t know it. You won’t relish the moment. You won’t know that you will never be as close to this person that you are having sex with ever again. Their flesh will never be exposed to you again like that. You’ll never fall asleep with them again, or watch their face as they cum. You’ll never fell their warmth again._

_You’ll get up, and you’ll walk away, and each step you take, will take you further from that moment. That last moment._

_With him._

_That time on the floor wasn’t the last time. We fucked again on the bed, and later in the shower. He put my hands on the glass and positioned my legs, his fingers sliding in and out of me, before he fucked me._

_That was the last time._

_The last time I ever fucked Henry Grahame. And I never knew._

_If I had, maybe I would have loved him a little more, for giving us those last times. Loved the arch of his back, the strength in his arms, the guidance of his hands, the hardness of his flesh, and the pressure of his lips just that bit more. Left some sort of trace on his body, a hickey or a bruise, so that I would own a part of him for a little bit longer. Maybe I would have thought more of him, rather then the feel of him inside me, and the soft touch of the water, and the sound of my own breathe._

_But he knew. He knew it was the last time, and he bent my wrist as he took me on the floor, leaving dark purple bruises that lingered for two weeks._

_That was the last time._

__  
“Justin?” The blonde looked up from magazine, his feet hooked over the seat in the air port lounge. The woman who had said his name sat down rather primly in the seat beside him, and opened her briefcase. She passed him the book. The new book.

 

“Under Neon Lights, by Ryan S Myer A.K.A Justin Taylor. Nice.” He tossed the book up and down in his hand. “So this is the new cover?”

 

“Yep. And there are about a thousand heading to Pittsburgh, ready to be bought at your first signing.” Justin pursed his lips and shook his head.

 

“Good old Pittsburgh.” He murmured, watching yet another plane take off.


	4. Under Blue Neon

Author note: Sorry about the slowness of updates. I've had a shitty week, a very shitty week.

* * *

“I’m not going.” Brian repeated again for the fourth time. Lindsey gave him an encouraging face. She sat down beside him, raising her eyebrows conspiringly.

 

“Aren’t you just dying to see him, and to publicly declare that you Brian Kinney are the muse and the hero of this novel? The sex god Henry Grahame himself?” She said, and Brian scowl deepened.

 

“Henry fucking Grahame. What the fuck kind of a name is that?”

 

“Better then Ryan Myer anyway.” Lindsey turned the book over in the hand and sighed. “When I’m going. I want to see Sunshine again, even if I have to queue up for it.” She said with a slightly nagging tone, and to check her hair. Brian slouched even deeper in his chair. 

 

“Don’t fucking say that word again.” Brian said suddenly, and pushing himself out of the chair, went outside for a smoke, leaving Lindsey confused. She replayed the sentence in her head, but somehow still seemed to miss what had made Brian storm out so.

 

_  
He could never tell me what he meant. He could only tell me what he didn’t mean. What he didn’t feel. What he couldn’t say. Which was why I should have given up on the idea of him asking me to stay. On asking me to come back. Whatever he felt, he had told me through the moans and grunts on the loft floor that day, the only language I think he ever truly mastered, one of sex, grit and lust._

_But if he asked me to stay, I never heard it._

_He did call though, once._

_It was night, god knows what night, and I was listening to the rain outside, with Rick in the other room. That was when he called. I stared at the name on my mobile for a full minute before answering, my mouth dry._

_“Sunshine?” I heard the voice. I heard it, and I knew if I heard anymore I’d get drawn back it. I felt something in me responding just to that one word. One word. That was all he needed with me._

_I flicked the phone shut and dropped it on the bed._

_There was no Sunshine anymore. No Sunshine, no golden boy, no ignorant kid who fell in love on a one night stand. I heard in his voice everything he was offering, everything, and chose again. I chose to be allowed to choose again. Because with him, there were no choices._

_My love held me hostage._

_Rick came back into the room, his tooth brush still in his mouth._

_“Who was that?” I shook my head dismissively._

_“No one. Wrong number.” And wrong life. I lay back on the bed, listening to Rick wash his face, and I thought for just that moment, that if I could love Rick, really love him, then maybe it would be different. Maybe his love would be without restrictions, and he would give it to me willingly._

_Maybe his love would set me free._

_Later I knew better. His love imprisoned me just like anything else, but worse, I did not love him back. Not with such need, such swift and cruel need, like I had loved Henry. He didn’t have my brand of cruelty in him._

_In those sleepless nights, I would think not of Rick and not of Henry, but of myself, my own pathetic-ness. I had leap from one relationship to another since I was seventeen. I had found deficiencies and faults, god had I found them, and a lot of them were in me._

_I realised I had never let myself be alone. I realised that maybe I was wanting something that no one could give me. And that I’d given up something that I couldn’t ever have again._

_However you tend to only have this moments of blinding realisations only in hindsight._

__  
“And he held my hand in his, my useless, broken hand, and he told me again what he must have told himself all those nights where fists left scars on his younger self as much as that baseball bat had on the back of my head. ‘Become the biggest fucking success you can. That’s your revenge. The biggest fucking success.’ And we fucked till three in the morning on the kitchen floor, which was his way of saying something else to. That my body wasn’t broken. Fucking him, it didn’t matter about my hand, because I was the most alive I have ever been, ever organ, every muscle, screaming with life, filled with life, filled with him.” Justin gave a small smile, and closed the book. God it felt weird, reading that in a room full of strangers. There was a quiet, almost hesitant applause, which was to be expected. Even Justin was shocked by how it sounded out loud.

 

He held up the book, shaking it. 

 

“This book is my life. It is my experience of being gay, and it’s not all happy. But it’s real. The sex, the nightclubs, they are real. They are a vivid reality for a lot of the gay men in America today. But so is my message. Being gay isn’t easy. There are so many steps in the battle, that we start to think that that is what gay life is. That’s how it will always be. A battle. And maybe it will be. Maybe life is always a battle. But I took his advice, and I became the biggest fucking success I could. And he was right. That is the way we can fight back.” He gave another little smile. “Thank you all for coming. It’s good to be back in Pittsburgh.”

 

Brian watched Justin step off the little platform into a circle of people. His agent, media, officials of god knows what. Brian thumbed his mouth, feeling the crackled skin of his own lip, his arms folded. Justin looked good. Hell, he hadn’t changed much. Still the cute blonde that he had loved fucking all those years ago. And for all those years. 

 

The hair was sort of longish again, not like it had been in his ‘Meg Ryan’ phase of haircut. Trimmed, well managed. It reminded Brian of Justin’s school boy days. That uniform. He remembered coming home to find the boy on his couch, still in that uniform so many times. Shirt untucked with its top button undone. That ruffled hair. 

 

He had fucked him so many times in that uniform.

 

“Wow,” Lindsey murmured next to him. 

 

“What?” Brian snapped, hating her talking over his shoulder.

 

“Its just I’ve never seen you run away from a fight before.” She whispered, and moved along the row of book cases to the next gap. Brian followed her awkwardly.

 

“I have no fight with Justin.”

 

“Really?” Lindsey ran her fingers along the books, a smile on her lips which just made Brian angrier. 

 

“No. Look, you and fucking Michael think that I give a fuck about the book, and you’re fucking wrong.”

 

“Don’t you even have the inclination to set the record straight?” Lindsey had paused, and was watching Justin again. It was strange, watching him like he was a stranger. He had been a part of their life for so long, that perhaps she had forgotten that he was there not because he was part of their huge, strange little family. He was not Debbie, or Debbie’s son. He wasn’t anyone’s best friend since high school, or through college. He wasn’t a trusted confident, or the father of her child. He was Brian’s boyfriend. 

 

She had forgotten that a little, and had been shocked how quickly he just disappeared from her life. From all of theirs. Without Brian, he had no role.

 

She supposed it had been the same for the others with Mel. Mel, who she hardly saw anymore. She knew Michael saw her and Jen, the baby, quite a lot. But she hadn’t been able to stomach it, and when Mel had gotten the new girlfriend.

 

Hell, she was still calling her the new girlfriend after five years.

 

“Well, I’m going to go talk to him.”

 

“No you’re fucking not.” Brian murmured. 

 

“Yes I am.” And she slid away from him. Brian watched her, sidling up to the group of onlookers, waiting for her turn. Was he meant to do that, wait till Justin had a minute to spare for him, to say what? There was nothing to say. 

 

Brian ducked his head and made for the entrance.

 

And Justin saw him. Saw that familiar dark head out of the corner of his eye. He knew, in that instant, that it was Brian. After five years, he could still spot him in any crowd. He disentangled himself from the people surrounding him, talking to him. 

 

“Jill, I’ll be right back.” He said quickly to his agent, his body taking over. He had to get through the crowd, through the people. He pushed himself out and half ran to the door. 

 

“Brian!” He yelled as he reached the door, clutching the door frame slightly. He stepped out onto the street, as Brian turned; his winter coat black and like a million others on the street. Justin took a step towards him, and smiled at the sight of that grin, the Brian Kinney half sad grin. “You going somewhere?” Justin asked slightly puffed, but he couldn’t stop smiling. Brian dropped his eyes to the pavement, his grin widening.

 

He knew what hadn’t changed about Justin. He could see the superficial changes, the slight change in accent, the maturing, he could see all that.

 

But what he could see more clearly was what hadn’t changed.

 

Justin was still golden. 

 

That was the only way he could describe it. The smile, the hair, everything, he was a golden boy. Always and forever.

 

“Nowhere special,” He said with a flash of recognition, as he looked up, biting his lip to try and hide his smile. Justin tilted his head. 

 

“What was it? I can,” He paused, trying to remember.

 

“I’ll change that for you?” Brian murmured, but he knew while that was what Justin had written, it wasn’t quiet right.

 

“Just ‘I can change that’, I think it was.” Justin murmured, with a little shrug.

 

“I see. I guess it’s hard to record things exactly huh?” Brian said; his hand behind his back. It was strange standing here with Justin, with the whole world going by, on the cold streets of Pittsburgh. It was strange being so close to him after everything he had read. And after everything he remembered.

 

Justin gave a little embarrassed smile.

 

“So did you like it?” 

 

“The book?” Brian asked, as though there were some confusion on what they were conversing. Justin rolled his eyes, and then grinned at the familiarity of the interchange. Hell, Brian looked good. But he had always looked good, so that wasn’t surprising.

 

“Yeah, the book.” Justin moistened his lips, tilting his head, wanting something, anything from Brian. Brain grinned again, and rubbed his head.

 

“I didn’t really read it.” Brian lied, and Justin saw it, and felt disappointed. So even now he couldn’t admit to that much, to having read the book, to give a damn about anything.

 

“Oh,” Brian saw the change in Justin and didn’t know whether he took satisfaction in the reaction or regretted. But what could he say that would capture every reaction he had had to that book? The horror and the embarrassment and how painful even the happy memories where, because they were just that, memories, and that every memory of his relationship with Justin had now been marred, tainted by Justin’s, so often cruel, narration.

 

“But what I read was good,” Brian said hopefully. But Justin just nodded.

 

“I’m glad you came. It means something to me.” Justin said after a moment. Brian nodded, and glanced down the street. Something. But who knew what?

 

“Well, maybe I can get a signing from the famous author.” Brian said, pulling out the book from his coat pocket. Justin noted that it was the original one, without the name change. He flipped open the cover, a pen in hand, poised, not knowing what to write.

 

“What do you want me to say?” Justin looked up almost slyly. Brian’s expression was sober now.

 

“Something to Henry. You must be able to think of something.”

 

“Alright.” Justin murmured. He stood for a moment, and then scribbled something on the soft inside of the hard back. Then he signed and gave it back to Brian.

 

“To Henry. For all the sex and good times, but mostly just for the time you gave me. With or Without love, Justin Taylor.” Brian read, and gave a bent smile. He snapped the book close. “I think you should have signed it Jason.”

 

“I’m not hiding anymore.” Justin said quietly.

 

“Well,” Brian paused, and for a second Justin thought he was going to touch him. Just for a second, he felt something shift in himself that he thought the book and that time might have put to rest. Maybe Brian saw it, the flicker in the eye. The slight uncertainty of where to go from here. “I got to get back to work. Reports don’t write themselves,” He said, with an inference that Justin didn’t quiet catch. Brian tapped the book before putting it in his pocket again. “Thanks.”

 

“No trouble.” Justin murmured carelessly to Brian’s back. Perhaps Brian didn’t hear those words, but even as Justin said them, they sounded like a warning. 

 

“Hey, where are you staying by the way?” Brian asked suddenly, turning, walking backwards a few steps. Justin paused.

 

“At the Hilton,”

_  
We were in a café, and I could see even as I sat down that this conversation was not going to be pleasant. He barely looked up at me, just kept examining the menu._

_“Jason?” He said after a moment, and I felt like an errant child again._

_“What?” The waiter came and we both ordered coffee. I would to this day love to know what coffee Henry ordered that day, because it was not his usual one. I think he ordered a latte, or a strong black, but I can’t remember. I can only remember how my hands looked, lying so helplessly on the white table cloth._

_“When you end it with Rick, that is his name, isn’t it?”_

_“Yes.” I murmured._

_“I don’t want you to come back to me.” He said it with such a business like tone, and I nearly shivered. It’s strange. There are ends to a relationship, and then there are ends. I’d run away with his credit card to become a go-go dancer. I’d run away with a violinist. I’d been kicked out more times then I could count. But I’d always found my way back home, back into his life, and back into his bed._

_But this was his warning._

_This was the end._

_There was no going back. When I stepped through this door, my old life, my life with Henry would slam firmly shut, bolded and barred from the other side._

_“Do you understand me Jason?” I hated when he asked me that. I hated it._

_“Fuck you.” I whispered and to his credit, he sat back affronted. Then he shook his head, and stirred his coffee which the waiter had just bought. He tore the sugar packet and poured half of it in, his eyes on the swirly liquid, his lips tight._

_“Don’t be a child Jason.”_

_“Stop saying my fucking name like that.” I hissed. “Get angry at me, get vicious and cruel, get violent.” I left those words hanging for a second, but he didn’t look up. “Don’t sit there be cold. Be passionate, goddamn you owe me that.”_

_“You’re passionate enough for the two of us.” He said quietly. I sat back in my seat._

_“And maybe that’s why we’re here. Because I’m sick of carrying this relationship. I’m sick of you not taking any responsibility.” I nearly spat it, but my voice was still quiet. Henry looked around him anyway, as though afraid the world was listening. But I almost wanted them to be. I wanted some proof, some mark that this moment was important. That this wasn’t just another break up, another pair of people in some restaurant spitting words at each other over coffee._

_“Do you want a reaction from me?” His face had darkened now. “You want me to take responsibility? You’re the one leaving me.” I scanned his face and came up empty. He didn’t understand. For him, it was that simple. He waited for me to say something, but I was silent. “So, I thought we should clarify this. When it ends with him, and it will,” He said quickly as I looked up, some acid comment dying on my tongue. “You’re not to come crawling back to me. I won’t forgive you, and I won’t take you back again.”_

_“What if I said I still love you?” I whispered. “What if I do still love you?” He looked down at his lap, and put his napkin on the table. He pulled out his wallet. My coffee was still untouched before me. He stood up, putting a bill on the table._

_“You’ve made it quite clear that love is not enough in this relationship.”_

_I stayed still, stuck to my seat, even as he walked away. I couldn’t turn my head to see him walk out the door, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move. I stared at my coffee, and at his, and I felt cold._

_Maybe it would be good to leave Pittsburgh. I’d go somewhere warm._


	5. Under Blue Neon

Michael was stacking comics. 

 

“You know what it made me think about?” Michael broke into the silence. 

 

“What?” Brian said, sitting on the counter. It was after closing time, and it was pouring outside. 

 

“It made me think about Rage. We were so excited.” Michael shook his head. Brian’s relaxed manner tightened for a minute as he realised what they were talking about. Michael turned around to look at him. “Do you remember how excited we were? We really thought they were going to make a movie, didn’t we?” Brian popped another M&M into his mouth.

 

“Well, you know what they say about Hollywood. It’s an unpredictable place.”

 

“We were so naïve. We thought it was going to change our lives. This big dream. That’s all it was wasn’t it?” Michael looked at his comics, and around the store. 

 

“Well,” Brian pushed himself of the counter, and wrapped his arms around Michael. He leant his chin on Michael’s shoulder, and the two of them stared at the action heroes, Superman, Spiderman, all of them. “It did change our lives somewhat.” Michael put a hand on Brian’s hair, and sighed.

 

It had taken Justin from them.

__

_“Jason, please just talk to me.” I could hear her on the other side of the door, and I could imagine her cold suburban house wife expression. I tore up another page of drawings, throwing it against the wall. I buried my face against my knees, and I felt like screaming. I opened my mouth, but I wouldn’t let any noise come out, just a violent exhaling of air._

_“I’m coming in, alright?” And she opened the door. She must have got a shock at the sight of my room. I was shuddering now. My hand was shaking too._

_“I can’t remember. I can’t remember it.” I turned to her, tears starting to fall down my face. She crouched beside me, and I was so wept against her shoulder. She very slowly, and very carefully put her arms around me._

_“It’s going to be alright baby, it’s going to be alright.” She whispered._

_“Why won’t he see me, Mum? Why won’t he see me?” The word came out so naturally, but I saw her blink at it. It had been so long since I called her mum._

_Then I wept against her blonde hair, my hand shaking with the fury of what had been denied to me. I wondered, as she put her hand on the back of my head, wheter she could feel the scar where the baseball bat had split open my head._

_I wondered what thoughts I had lost, in those moments, not just those memories, moments before the accident._

_Sometimes I felt like I lost something vital that night. My firm belief in where that line of my life was leading me was shattered._

__  
“Justin,” Jennifer held out her arms, and Justin took the last few steps up to the house, giving her a warm embrace. He kissed her on the cheek, and they both grinned.

 

“I swear you’re still growing,” She said, her face flushed with emotions. Justin smiled. “What are we doing standing out here in the cold? Come in, won’t you come in?” She said almost as though she expected him to deny her. And Justin stepped into the little house, wondering how long it had been since he’d been here.

 

“Where’s Molly?”

 

“She’s with friends for the week. It’s her holidays, so I think they’ve gone on a bit of a road trip.” Jennifer said, leading him into the kitchen. “Do you want tea?” Justin nodded. He leant against a counter almost awkwardly.

 

“I brought you a copy of the book.” He said after a moment. Jennifer was reaching for cups in the cupboard, and she gave a little exclamation.

 

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that. I already bought one.” Justin put it on the counter anyway. He sat down at the kitchen table, waiting for something from her. Some sort of accusation, or anything. Motherly reproval at least.

 

“Have you read it then?” And it felt awkward. That she might have. With everything that was written in it. She had always hated Brian, and the book could hardly have helped. Even the most imaginative mother would not have really understood the relationship between her son and this older man. 

 

“I wanted not to but I had to.” She sat down and passed him a cup. “I loved it though.”

 

“Really?” He asked, perplexed. 

 

“Really.” She touched his hand. “It showed me what I always knew about you. Everything. Your love, your strength, your endurance. Even during the times when you wouldn’t let me into you life, no let me finish, you were still you. You have nothing to be ashamed of Justin, from this book. In your life” She glanced down at the table top. “Though, there are probably some parts that I didn’t need to read. I don’t think I could ever look that man in the face again.” She said.

 

“Well, actually, I saw him.” Justin said quickly. “He was at my signing. We didn’t…It was a bit of a shock for both of us.”

 

“You never kept in contact?” Justin gave her a dry look. “Well, no I suppose you didn’t.” She paused. “I never really liked Brian. But, reading it, I can see why you loved him. And I can see why you left him.” She gave a little shake. “So how long are you in Pittsburgh for?” She smiled, changing the subject.

 

“So, Mr Taylor, do you think that anonymous gay sex could be classified as an epidemic in today’s nightlife?”

 

“Uh,” Justin closed his eyes for a moment. “An epidemic? That’s not exactly the word I would use for it…” It had been like this for two hours. Question after question, reviewers, journalists, all the media works had kicked into action. He actually felt quite faint. And the idiocy of some of these questions. Half of them where homophobic, the other heterophobic, and he didn’t know which one was worse.

 

“What about the young boy, Ranger, and the inference of a high level of male prostitution on our streets? Would you say that older gay men are preying on the younger, and that gay boys are becoming increasingly sexually active at younger ages, such as yourself?”

 

“I think you could say that of both the gay and the straight world. I’m not tyring to make statement about every gay man’s experience, just mine…”

 

“You’ve got to admit, Mr Taylor, a HIV positive young male prostitute is rather a controversial issue. Do you think that he would have been as sexually active if he had been heterosexual.?”

 

“Uh, well, I have no doubt that Ranger’s good looks would have supplied him with an equally active sex life if his home background and history hadn’t been what it was. He is also now a sexually active heterosexual, if that helps answer your question, and thank you, I’m sorry, that will really have to be the last question.” Justin took another sip of water. He was exhausted. He stepped off the podium, allowing his manager to take over. He ran his hand over his face.

 

“Hey dude.” Justin looked up, and his face broke into a weary grin at the sight of Hunter and Ben. Hunter held up Justin’s book, and pointed at the front cover.

 

“Brian.” He said with a grin. “See, I’m just as smart as Ben. I figured it out.” Justin rolled his eyes, and gave the former prostitute at a hug. He held out his hand to Ben. It was only then he noticed the other person standing with them.

 

“Oh, Justin, this is Amanda. She’s my girlfriend. My girlfriend I got with my good looks,” Hunter raised his eyebrows. He had filled out since Justin had last saw him, his shoulders wider. He still wore his hair in that long stringy style that made his beautiful jaw line all the more feminine, but his clothes and his demeanour was slightly different. More confident, more adult, less of the rebellious teenager. Ben had his hands shoved in the pockets of his paints. As much as Justin tried to keep his eyes on Hunter, he couldn’t. He couldn’t help but look at Ben.

 

At the change in him.  
He wondered why no one had told him that Ben was sick. He doubted however that anyone could have explained to him how sick.

 

Ben looked almost skeleton like. He’d dropped at lot of weight, and his face was gaunt. Justin remembered the weight pumping too big to be a teacher man of five years ago, and felt shocked.

 

Aids had slowly been stripping the flesh of him.

 

“It’s great to see you.” Justin said; his grin still in place.

 

“It’s good seeing you too dude. I insisted we come, and Ben said you were here for like a month, so we thought,” Hunter broke off and shrugged. Justin nodded.

 

“Where’s Michael? Are you two still…?” 

 

“Yes,” Ben’s smile looked forced. “He’s not, he didn’t want to come.”

 

“Ah,” Justin gave a sad smile. So Michael had read the book too. 

 

\- - - - -- - 

 

“Justin, a man called for you while you were out. A Brian Kinney,” Justin was changing, unbuttoning his shirt, his shoes already kicked against the wardrobe. 

 

“Thanks Margaret,” He yelled back, slipping his white undershirt over his head.

 

“He said he’d be at the hotel bar at seven if you wanted to have drinks.” Justin checked the clock. Shit. Ten to seven. Not even time for a shower. He threw on a clean shirt, and headed to the bathroom mirror. He pushed his hands through his hair and sighed.

 

He got down into the hotel lobby by five past, and he managed to look considerably presentable. He wondered briefly why Brian was here, but then passed off the thought. There was no point in asking why’s with Brian. Justin would always inevitably come to the wrong answer.

 

Brian was at the bar, Justin recognised his back immediately. Thank god that hadn’t changed. The same old slouch, and there it was, that casual glance over the shoulder. The bartender was cute. Justin knew because he’d come for drinks here last night. Brian saw him and gave Justin a brief smile, before moving to take a seat away from the bar. Justin gave his order to the barkeep and followed Brian.

 

“Hey,” He said, shuffling into the booth. Brian had taken the seat. Brian pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Justin frowned.

 

“I thought you quit, what with the cancer.” Brian gave him a dry look. So much for civilities.

 

“I smoke occasionally. Can’t give up all my vices.” Brian said, exhaling and glancing around. Then he looked up at Justin, his fingers on his spare hand tapping against the table top in thought. “How did you pick?” Justin tilted his head, waiting for an explanation. Brian sighed at having to clarify himself. “How did you pick which bits to include, and which to exclude?”

__

_The diner was packed. Brian was waiting for his coffee, thumbing a sugar packet between his thumb and finger. Justin sat back in his seat, sulking. Suddenly he leant forward, his hand grabbing Brian’s. Brian nearly jumped backwards, startled._

_“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I used you fucking shampoo. Alright? Stop being mad at me..” Brian licked his lips. God, he wished he was licking Justin’s._

_\- - - - -_

_Brian pushed the hair back off Justin’s forehead. The boy was staring at the wall, his eyes so terribly sad. Brian wanted to do something, anything. He wanted to yank Justin out of those school boy clothes and fuck him in Michael’s old room. He wanted to make Justin’s eyes well up with pleasure that made him bit his lip so hard it bleed, rather then with this unbearable sadness._

_Fuck those arseholes at school, fuck all of them._

_\- - - - - -_

_“The whole time I was on the ride,” Brian said, as he watched Justin lean over in his extra tight lycra bike shorts, allowing Brian who was standing in the door way an amazing view of his arse. Brian folded his arms, unable however to stop the grin forming. Justin tossed Brian his t-shirt cheekily. “I was thinking, this tent is just too big for little old me.” Brian slowly detoured Justin’s trip to the shower, pushing him back on the bed. Justin leant up on his elbows laughing, leaning into Brian’s kiss._

_“Was this before or after I had mind blowing sex with a movie star?” Justin gave Brian an half innocent smile, biting his lip. Brian quirked an eyebrow._

__  
“There’s so much you left out.” Brian said, and then shook his head, dispelling those thoughts. Justin was watching him carefully. Brian sighed and rubbed his neck.

 

“Like what?” Justin asked, not letting him off the hook so easily. It was the same as when had seen him earlier. He wanted something from Brian, after all this time he still wanted… what? What had he ever wanted from Brian? 

 

He knew what he had expected. 

 

Though sometimes, just sometimes, he’d been pleasantly surprised.

 

“I don’t know,” Brian shook his head again, and took a sip of his drink. The waiter bought Justin his, but Justin barely looked up. Brian ran a hand through his dark hair as though trying to grab a hold of the thoughts themselves. “Like, Rage?” Justin laughed, and stirred his drink with his straw.

 

“Well, that would have been a bit of a give away. There was a time when I thought I would get away with the anonymous thing. And,” He looked up, his brow furrowing in that way that had made Brian worry that Justin might get worry lines, and mar that beautiful forehead. “It just didn’t seem… relevant.” Justin gave Brian a speculative look. “You want to know why I lied.” It was such a blunt statement that Brian looked up.

 

“What?” 

 

“I said the last time we had sex was that afternoon,” He paused, waiting for something from Brian. But nothing came. Brian’s eyes remained as dark and impassable as ever. “When I told you that I was…”

 

“I remember.” Brian said curtly. “I know why. And it wasn’t really a lie.” Of course that hadn’t been the last time. God, for so long it felt like there would never be a last time with the two of them. Two months later, Justin had wanted him back. And Brian had spent three weeks with him, fucking him senseless in a Hollywood paid for hotel, and drinking so much that he gained three kilos. 

 

And then he’d got back on a plane and left. 

 

He hadn’t even told Mikey.

 

“It took me so long to understand that, you know that?” Justin gave a harsh laugh. “You just left. I thought it was another game, another… I don’t know. I thought for so long if I could just figure it out, figure out what you wanted me to do, we’d be…” He shook his head as if he realised he had gone off track. Brian said nothing. He had sat in the loft, Justin’s smell everywhere, all through his clothes and mingled with everything, even the sweat on his skin, and tried to forget. “But you’d already said goodbye hadn’t you? That afternoon. The rest was just…”

 

“Poking at a bruise?” Brian murmured, glancing over his shoulder. Justin smiled despite himself.

 

“I’ve been called a lot, but never that.” Brian looked at Justin for a long time, as though trying to place this boy who sat before him, as though he didn’t fit with the remembered Justin. “So you did read it?” Justin said, and he hated himself for it, his voice, his eagerness to please Brian. To want his opinion. Brian gave him a bemused look.

 

“Of course I read it.”

 

“Did you hate it?” Brian laughed and shook his head. He pulled out a note, ending this.

 

“I hated it and loved it in turns. Just when like it actually happened.” He shook his head again. Justin stood also, but his head was bowed.

 

“Are you going then?”

 

“I’ve got somewhere to be.” Brian said, a faint trace of humour of his lips that Justin didn’t understand. Justin brushed Brian’s shoulder, just for a second, his body language hesitant, but his eyes sure. Brian remembered those eyes, god how he remembered them.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to…” He trailed off, and left the suggestion in the air. One last time. For old times sake. Brian shook his head. He pulled on his gloves.

 

“I’ve got someone waiting for me.”


	6. Under Blue Neon

Authors note: Thank you for being so patient with my sporadic updating!

* * *

Justin sat alone in his hotel room. He had considered going out, going and seeing Babylon and all its beautiful boys. But he couldn’t be bothered. He channel surfed, watching Mel Gibson on about three channels. Crap, crap, crap.

 

Really, he was thinking about Brian.

 

Why had Brian come, if not to fuck? Not that he had really thought, after how fucked up things had been, but… what had Brian wanted from him during that conversation? There was something, something he felt he had missed. 

 

Justin slipped his hand under the waistband of his pants, stroking himself slightly as he thought. His mind on Brian now, he couldn’t help remember all the things Brian had done to him, and all the things that they had done together. He’d had some pretty wild nights since then, but… Brian’s hand on his back while he was being fucked as pretty much the most erotic thing that Justin had ever needed.

 

Needed.

 

God, Justin hadn’t really thought about what he needed for so long. He’d just had want he wanted, whenever he wanted. 

 

But maybe not what he needed.

 

It had been five years after all.

 

\- - - - -

“Are you going out tonight?”

 

“No, are you?” Brian murmured, but he didn’t really care. Tod was always going out, always doing something. There was always this boy or that boy or someone who was having a party or a dinner or coffee. God, the boy drank more coffee that that annoying daughter on the Gilmore girls. 

 

“No, I can’t afford it.” He said, tasting his pasta sauce. Brian sighed.

 

“Tod, I told you, you don’t need to pay rent.”

 

“But I want to,” This was an age old argument. “It’s my place too Brian.”

 

“You wouldn’t be living in a place like this if it wasn’t for me. You’d be living in a crack box with three room mates and be able to go out every goddamn night of the week.” Brian leant on the counter, trying to look intimidating, but Tod just ignored him.

 

“I don’t care. And I’m not letting you lord over me anything to do with money.” Tod kissed him sweetly and then went back to cooking, leaving Brian seething.

 

“Well then,” Brian grinned with an equal sweetness. “Guess I’ll just have to go out without you. Have fun here by yourself.” He said, his mood changing. Maybe he did feel like going out after all, let off some loose steam.

 

“Fuck you Brian.” Tod yelled after him as Brian made his way into the bedroom. Brian raised an arm over his head in a mock wave and he wouldn’t let himself make the connection, to acknowledge a different voice, saying those words.

 

_  
Our bedroom. That’s what I had started to think of it as. I knew it was stupid, and Henry would have a field day if he ever heard me call it that, but it really was ours by now. He even let me keep some of my stuff in the draw on one side of the bed. Well, not let, but hadn’t removed, which for Henry was the same thing_

_God I loved that bedroom. I loved Henry in that bedroom._

_The things we did on that bed._

_And not always sex things. It was in that little room that I knew him. I knew his quirk of the eyebrow, the curve of his arm. And I knew his tenderness. I knew his thrashing as he had nightmares, and his moods at two in the morning when he would wake me, and talk shit until sunrise. It was there I knew not only his body, but his quietness, and his playfulness and later, his sympathy._

_When he would hold me at three in the mornings, while I shuddered in his arms, still so caught up in those nightly battles that I thought I could feel blood running down my forehead, and that terrible cracking sound of the bat…_

__

“Brian!” Tod yelled. Brian jumped. 

 

“What?”

 

“I said, dinner’s ready. God, are you brain dead tonight or something?” 

\- - - - - 

Justin flicked to the page, the one he had dog-eared. The one he had read over and over again, and worried about printing, and the one he knew that if anything could cut Brian, this would have.

__

_Henry Grahame was, as I had said, filled with a supreme arrogance. And yes he could have anyone he wanted, whenever he wanted, because he smarter, faster, hotter, but he was not better. That was what I had come to realise, after all those nights. He was all those things, but he was also broken._

_He was a selfish prick who wouldn’t love anyone. And worse, who would not accept an inch of love. Not even mine. Maybe because he thought he didn’t deserve it, maybe because he was afraid he would lose it, maybe he just wasn’t used to. Hell maybe he didn’t want my love._

_But I don’t know, because he never told me. He wouldn’t tell me why he rejected my love._

_He never told me anything._

_His poor beautiful body, he relied so heavily on it._

_Even at the beginning I wondered what he was running from, and whether I would be able to keep up the pace. Later, I wondered if perhaps he didn’t want me to._

__

It was too honest. God, Justin thought as he chucked the book off the bed, the whole thing was too honest. It hadn’t been when he’d written it, it had been someone else’s pain then. Poor, stupid Justin’s pain, Justin who had fallen out of his school uniform into Brian’s bed. Some younger and dumber version of himself. But now, having seen Brian again, it was like it had all been made fresh again.

\- - - - -

“SUNSHINE!! Are you kidding me?” Debbie threw he arms around Justin, her pudgier arms which had only gotten bigger in her retirement. Emmett stood a few feet behind her and gave a sort of wave. Justin grinned hesitantly, before noticing it was tears in Emmett’s eyes that made him stay back. Hastily they hugged, and Justin rubbed the older man’s forearms comfortingly.

 

“Come in, get that cute arse into my kitchen, I want to hear what it’s been up to.” Deb babbled, she too almost in tears.

 

And Justin let himself get bustled inside. 

\- - - - - -

 

“I just don’t see why you and Hunter had to go see him.” Michael hissed. Hunter looked up dryly from the backseat. He leant forward, intruding in the conversation.

 

“Dude, firstly, I can hear you even from all the way back here. Secondly, we didn’t break up with Justin.”

 

“Thanks for the input Einstein. And we’re going to talk about you’re new girlfriend staying with us before we get home.” Michael said angrily, still glowering at Ben. Ben gripped the steering wheel, and perhaps Michael didn’t see the weakness in him. But off course he did, he just wouldn’t comment. He wouldn’t because it shamed Ben too much. And Michael still saw his big strong lover under there, the man who could nearly pick him up with one arm. And because life still had to be lived while it could.

 

And because just the thought of Justin pissed the hell out of Michael. They hadn’t seen what it had done to Brian. They didn’t know him like Michael did. And to have written… that book of lies. How could anyone talk to him?

 

“Hunter’s right Michael. Whatever happened between Brian and Justin, who I also want to add broke up five years ago, shouldn’t affect how we treat Justin, otherwise what kind of people are we, what kind of friends..” Ben looked over hopefully, but Michael was sulking now.

 

“Well said dad.” Hunter said sarcastically, getting back to his book.

 

“There’s such a thing as loyalty, you know.” Michael grumbled.

 

“Anyway, we’re here now.” Ben said with the tone of changing the subject. “So Hunter, be nice to Debbie, for once. And don’t…”

 

“Get her on to the topic of hetero sex. I know. I know.” Hunter leant forward again. “Which in my opinion seems a little unfair, since everyone else is always talking about gay sex. Debbie might just want to talk to someone who she can share with, who understands…” He said jokingly. Michael rolled his eyes.

 

“I don’t think sharing with my mother about sex is on the agenda today. And no one’s asking for your opinions,” He said snappishly. He released his seat belt. “Let’s just get this over with.”

\- - - - - -

“So honey, have you got a boyfriend?” Debbie said. Justin was sitting quiet uncomfortably in the kitchen, watching with horror Deb trying to make coffee. Emmett just sat back with an I-told-you-so look.

 

“No,” Justin started.

 

“Why the hell not?” Debbie swung round, her hands on her hips.

 

“I’m just,” Justin shook his head. “Not really interested in a lot of the guys I meet.”

 

“Well, I wish that was my problem,” Emmett said examining his fingernails. Justin shrugged under Debbie’s glare. 

 

“You have been dating though right?” Debbie said, turning back the counter. She poured the coffee into the mugs.

 

“Some, yeah, and a few relationships, but nothing that was really, you know, I’ve been pretty much single for a while now…” Justin trailed off again. Debbie planted the coffee cup in front of him.

 

“Five years, no serious relationship. You must have been doing a lot of arsefucking, that’s for sure.” Debbie said trying to cover up the uncomfortableness, and both the gay men grimaced at the language. No one was going to mention Brian. Five years since they broke up.

 

“Debbie, don’t be so harsh on him,” Emmett sat down next to Justin conspiringly. “Look I was talking to Tod, and he said that most young gay men in their twenties aren’t having long term relationships. He read it in gay weekly or something…”

 

“Tod?” Justin asked lingeringly, and Emmett opened his mouth, then paused, blinked and shook his head.

 

“Just a guy I know. So tell me, who in Hollywood is really straight? And please don’t say Colin Farrell, I’ll die…”

 

“Em, I’m sorry, but come on…”

 

“Mum? Is anybody home?” Justin paused at the sound of Michael’s voice, his story trailing off. Emmett pursed his lips, and got up. 

 

“Hey, Mike,” He said cheerily, and then moved out of the way so that the three men in the lounge room could see Justin. Debbie stood up also, playing with her wedding ring.

 

“Hey Hunter,” She said after a pause, during which every one watched each other’s reactions. She advanced on the boy, and pulled him into a solid hug. “We never should have let you go to university so far away. I missed you.” 

 

“Mum, what the hell is he doing here?” Michael said, refusing to defuse the tension in the air. Justin made a face. Well, wasn’t this predictable. 

 

“Michael, manners. I invited him into my home, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

 

“After everything he’s done, you welcome him back with open arms?” Michael spluttered in disbelief. He shook his head, and turned on Justin. “And you, how dare you show your face here, after, after…?” Michael broke off again. He pointed a finger at Justin. “I hope to god Brian doesn’t see you.”

 

“I saw him last night.” Justin said coolly, getting up. “But I don’t think that’s your business.”

 

“You bloody well made it our business, you wrote a fucking book on it.” Michael spluttered. He took a step closer to Justin. “What you did to him was despicable, and what you wrote…”

 

“About you or about him?” Justin said dryly.

 

“Michael, lets not do this…” Ben said quietly. Michael whirled on him.

 

“You think I’m being unreasonable? Do you?” He looked at Debbie, and at Emmett. “Where any of you there where Brian was crying over this little shit? Did any of you have to help him put back the pieces of his life when this brat got bored and decided that maybe he didn’t want Brian after all?” He looked back at Justin when he heard Justin laughing. 

 

“So that’s still what it’s about? God I thought it was something in the book. But no, same old Michael, just angry because I had and rejected what he always wanted. Still got a bit of a hard on for Brian it seems?”

 

And that was when Michael’s fist connected with his face. Justin felt the blow first his cheek bone, and then his eye, and then he felt the floor. He put his hand to his face, not quite believing that little Michael could pack a punch that would knock him over. Michael was breathing so hard he was shaking.

 

“Fuck you, you spoilt brat. You threw away one of the best men I’ve ever met and you blamed it one everyone but yourself. You tried to fucking destroy him, and you nearly bloody did, no, let me finish,” The last bit was directed at Ben, who had put his hands on Michael’s shoulders comfortingly, and perhaps restraining him. “Brian is the strongest, the most honest man and if you couldn’t see how much he loved you then you were idiot.”

 

There was silence as Michael finished. No one would say anything, and no one made another move to help Michael or Justin. Justin peeled himself off the floor, and pushed past Michael angrily, not looking at anyone, and fled the house and all its accusations.

 

“Well, that was certainly,” Ben pursed his lips, and broke off. Everyone was shell shocked.

 

Justin leant against the wheel of the car, taking in deep breathes that shook his body. He closed his eyes, and saw again Michael’s face before he hit him. He winced, touching his cheek. It would bruise for sure. 

__

_“The worst times were when he hit me so badly I couldn’t go to school,” Henry rolled the joint, his eyes distant. I wrapped my arms around the pillow, resting my chin on it as well, watching the motions of his fingers, allowing the last tingling to drain out of my body. “My mother,” Henry always said my mother, not mum or Joanna or anything. And it was always in that same tone, that disgust. “Was afraid that social services would go nuts if I came to school with a black eye. She wouldn’t even let me go and see Toby or anything. So I’d be locked in that house,” He shook his head at this point and I could see he was going to change the subject._

_“I guess I didn’t have it that bad.” I murmured, and Henry looked up as though shocked to see me. He put down the joint, now rolled, and stroked my cheek, his eyes tracing my skin as though expecting it to be bruised. With one hand on either side of my face, he kissed me._

_Then he shook his head at this too, as though both these moments, the remembered ones and this one, here, in the flesh, with me, were too much. He lit the joint, and then fed it to me, his thumb resting on my lower lip._


	7. Under Blue Neon

“Fuck them.” Justin murmured for what must be the hundredth time. He kicked off his shoes, and settled on the bed, an ice pack on his eye. He flicked on the television, but he couldn’t concentrate on the shows. He was almost glad when the phone rang.

 

“Hey. It’s Brian.” Justin sat up, pulling the phone onto his lap.

 

“Hey, what’s up?” Justin said almost warily. He winced as he applied the ice pack again.

 

“Not much, not much.” There was a silence. Justin waited. Let Brian have to do this, get over this obstacle. “Was just wondering how you were getting on?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, great other then the black eye Michael gave me.” Justin said, leaning between his knees. 

 

“Michael? My Michael?” Brian said after a pause.

 

“Yeah. So he’s definitely not a fan.” Justin growled when he heard Brian laughing.

 

“Little old Mikey, I didn’t know he had it in him.” Brian said, but there was contrition in his voice.

 

“Yeah, well neither did I.” Justin said, leaning back on the bed and stretching himself out. “So what are you doing?”

 

“Not much. Having a bit of a smoke in the loft.” Justin grinned at that. He could imagine Brian, feet up on the coffee table, wearing just his tracksuit bottoms, eyes glazed slightly from the drunk. Justin cradled the phone to his ear, and wished suddenly that he was there. 

 

God it was strange talking to Brian. After so long of silence, and yet now, it was as though a light had just come on, suddenly reconnected. And it felt so natural. Not that there had ever been a time when he had forgotten Brian, just, he’d disappeared from his life so quickly that Justin had almost forgotten what it felt like. To have him there. To have this connection.

 

He’d never forgotten the connection itself. Just how it had felt to have it so accessible. Just a phone call away. 

 

For so long, all communications had been shut down.

 

“You still got the loft then?” He asked, grinning. God he loved that place. He didn’t think there was a square inch that they hadn’t fucked on.

 

“You thought I’d sell it?” Brian said, his tone indignant. “What, did you think I would be in a house in the suburbs, picket fence and a guard dog?”

 

“Pretty much. The whole nine yards.” 

 

“Hey, do you remember when you got back from Hollywood, after the liberty ride, and we went on that trip, just you and me, and fucked in that tent like you wanted us to,”

 

“Yeah?” Justin said, a laugh catching in his throat. They had gone swimming in this river, and Brian lost his board shorts in the current while the two of them fucked on the river rocks. It had felt strange, the coolness of those rocks against his bare skin, the river between there bodies, the sound of their breath mixing with the water, and the wetness of Brian’s lips as they kissed. “I remember that your arm was still broken so you couldn’t do anything, and I had to help you with everything. You were so useless when I was setting up the tent.”

 

“It was difficult to go to the bathroom, that’s all I’m going to say.” Brian agreed, and then his tone became more serious. “That’s when you told me you’d move in with me again.”

 

“Yes.” Justin remembered that. He remembered how Brian had acted like it was nothing, but had kissed him and held him for so long in the darkening waters, Brian trying not to get his cast wet, and the two of them had stared up at the sky above as the stars appeared, so much brighter and more honest then they could be back in Pittsburgh, the water growing still around them, their bodies warm against one another.

 

“Why didn’t you write about that? Why didn’t you include that?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Was it because it was a lie?” Brian’s voice was sharper now. “Did you know then that it wasn’t going to happen?”

 

“No,” Justin nearly breathed it. “No, I didn’t know. I really thought… I thought we were going to be happy Brian, I really did.”

 

There was a silence, and Justin listened to Brian breathing. He heard the click of the lighter, and Brian inhaling. He heard that breath released. 

 

“Four years.” Justin almost exhaled that too. Justin wished Brian was here, in the flesh, so he could see his expression. So that he could read his body. The phone felt so dead and fake in his hand. “It was all just pretend wasn’t it? You and me. Before everything went back to normal.”

 

“Is that how you see it?” Justin asked. 

 

“Don’t you?” Brian waited for a response but got none. “It was a one night stand that didn’t end.”

 

“Not for me it wasn’t. It changed everything. You changed everything.” Justin whispered. 

 

“But not for the better.” Justin wanted to yell at Brian. He wanted to scream into the phone, didn’t you read it? Didn’t you really read the book? It was all about you. About everything you did for me. I loved you, and that love changed my entire world.

 

“I missed you Justin. I did miss you.” Justin closed his eyes. This concession was nearly too much for him. God, he could fall in love with this man all over again.

 

There was a click, and Justin knew that Brian had hung up. He put the phone back on the receiver slowly and stared at his hand. He wondered as he had wondered for those four years, exactly how Brian Kinney’s brain worked. And what exactly he thought of him.

\- - - - -

 

_  
I leant against the side of the bed, and the minutes passed so slowly. I could hear his every breath. This was mine. Me, a school boy pretending to be a man. A teenager who had school and parents and the whole nine yards, and yet, also had this. This moment._

_And these tears. Because I couldn’t understand._

_“If you don’t believe in love,”_

_“I don’t.” He said softly, and I wanted to deny him. I wanted to yell at him that of course he did, that love screamed through his every touch on me, if he didn’t love then how could I love him so damn much? But I couldn’t say that._

_“So the men, and the random sex and fucking Babylon is enough? How can that be enough for you?” I turned, kneeling for a moment, waiting. He pushed a hand through my hair, almost violently, a cuff on the head._

_“There’s always more Justin. More nights, more men, more words.” He said the last one with a sorrowful look at me._

__  
Coffee. With Brian. Justin ordered a cappuccino, watching Brian check out the waiter. He glanced around the courtyard, his arm resting against the brick wall. Other couples, a baby in a push car, life as normal.

 

“I feel like I should say sorry.” Justin said, the small talk of moments earlier seeming so distant from the now. Brian raised an eyebrow.

 

“What for?” 

 

“For the book.” Justin felt the words dropping of his lips. A fly landed on Brian’s hand and he shook it off. Justin found his eyes lingering on that hand, slowly dragging up to his face. 

 

“Are you sorry?” Brian asked matter-of-factly. Justin shook his head almost hesitantly and then more confidently. He laughed.

 

“No.”

 

“Then why say sorry? It’s your book, your life, don’t fucking care what anyone else thinks.” Brian looked away for a moment. Justin wanted to laugh. So Brian could still come out with profound bullshit at a moments notice when he wanted to.

 

“It’s your life too.” Justin said and Brian shrugged to that too. Justin gave Brian a long look.

 

“What are we doing? Here, now?” He added explanation. “What do you want from me?” Brian nearly recoiled at those words, and Justin wished he could take them back, soften them somehow. He pulled a face, but Brian waved away the beginning of the apology. He was staring at some distant spot on the floor, and Justin waited.

 

“We had good times didn’t we?” Brian asked finally. Justin looked slightly startled at this but bemused.

 

“Yeah,” He said softly. They had had good times, and bad times, soft times, hard times, fuck they’d had everything. And sometimes it had seemed like they had nothing.

 

“Justin I…” Brian looked up at Justin and then broke off. Justin waited again, but Brian pulled a face. “Doesn’t matter now. When are you going back?” He asked briskly. Justin felt disappointed. He wanted to know what Brian was thinking off, what made Brian want to see him. No, fuck that, he wanted Brian. 

Right now, here, finally he was going to be honest like he hadn’t been for so long. He looked at Brian and remembered so much, sure, a shit load of it was painful, but he also knew that the man before him was so beautiful that words failed him. Not just good looking, not just charming, because anyone can have that, right? But he was beautiful because of… fuck. Who knew? Maybe he just was. Maybe he was beautiful because of the way he lived.

 

Or something like that. Justin had always done better with pictures then words. 

 

He still wanted Brian. Hell, he’d always wanted Brian. 

 

“I don’t know.” Justin said softly. “I’m pretty much a free agent.”

 

“So there’s no one…” Brian trailed off, giving Justin an unflinching, analysing look. Justin shook his head, unable to tear himself away from that gaze.

 

“No. I’m not seeing anyone.” Justin shook his head, and he smiled with amusement at himself. God, he would always do this. Put himself on the line for Brian. Because there was so much to gain. “I haven’t seen anyone seriously in a long time. No one really compares to you Brian.” Justin said, returning Brian’s look. Brian sighed at this, a frown appearing. He glared down at his nails.

 

“Yeah. I’m Mr Perfect.” 

 

“Don’t believe everything you read.” Justin said jokingly. Brian smiled almost bitterly, glancing up at Justin again.

 

“You’re better off.” Brian said, his eyebrows furrowing even as he said it. “You were right. To leave.” And there it was. Brian’s cards on the table. Justin glanced up at the blue sky above. And he knew. He knew what he had known for the last five years.

 

“I think it was a mistake.” He stared at Brian, and put his hand out to touch Brian’s where it sat still on the table. “I think it was the worst mistake I have ever made, and I made it twice.” Brian looked at Justin as though he needed a translator for a moment, his brows furrowing. Then slowly, Brian moved his hand from Justin’s.

 

“This isn’t what I want to hear.” He said firmly. Justin laughed, slightly stung already, feeling the flush rise in his cheeks. What had he expected? Brian to start spouting poetry? Maybe he _had_ been in Hollywood too long.

 

“Too bad. This isn’t what you want to hear? Guess what? You should have heard it five years ago, because I should have told you then.” Justin hissed it. “I should have told you the day after I left how wrong I was. And I don’t give a shit if you don’t want to hear that. I never told you what you wanted to hear, so why would I start now?” Brian pushed one hand through his hair, glancing around as though checking for cameras. 

 

“Justin…”

 

“Brian I missed you, but more to the point I still do. And I know how fucked up that is. I know how badly we fucked it up, but I also know that you were there with me, in each of those moments I wrote about, and the millions of others I didn’t. And they were worth something, weren’t they?” Justin finished, almost out of breathe. Brian started laughing, his hands on either side of his face, staring at Justin with amazement. “What?”

 

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you Justin. Here I was thinking you had written that damn book to put it all to rest and now you want to dredge it all up again.” He shook his head again, but his smile dispersed as he became serious. “Leave it Justin. It’s better where it is.” Justin sat back. 

 

“You’re still…” He started but Brian cut him off, one hand jumping off the table as though to hit Justin. But it stayed in the air, menacing for a moment, Brian barely noticing it.

 

“Yes I’m still. There’s still Kinnetik, and there’s still the loft and there’s still fucking Babylon and its back room, and I’m still me. The arrogant prick. Nothing has changed.” Brian glanced heavenward as though demanding some divine intervention, then his eyes falling on Justin’s face again. 

 

And he was still beautiful.

 

“Maybe I have.” Justin said softly. 

 

“You haven’t changed Justin,” Brian seemed on the brink of laughing as he said it. “You’re still the same kid I saw on the street that night. You still want love and fireworks and everything I can’t give you. You and me, we don’t change. We never change.” 

 

And it sounded like an oath.

 

_“And I still want you.”_ Justin breathed it. Brian froze as though he had breathed those words, not the blonde creature before him. He pushed his chair back, got up and walked away without another word. Justin bit his lip, shaking his head.


	8. Under Blue Neon

_“Tell me. Tell me again.” I said quietly. I could feel my hand shaking with that life of its own and I wanted it to stop. I wanted Henry to stop looking at me with such pity. I wanted to lie down and be quiet and let the world wash away. Let my life wash away. Painting. University. My family. Henry. All of it. It seemed to belong to some distant me where being gay was some big game, and I was always winning._

_And I wanted to tell Henry that that happy beautiful version of me would always be in love with him._

_“Tell me you don’t believe in love Henry.”_

_“Fuck off,” He murmured, shoving me lightly away, so that the back of my hand clipped the crumbling brick’s of the alley. I lolled against the wall, and Henry put a hand behind my head, gazing into my face. For a second, in the dark, I had thought he was the other. The beautiful violinist who could only see the world with its colours askew, a world where passion and love were as real as coffee and cigarettes and sex at two in the morning._

_Henry undid my belt, then paused, one hand resting on my belly._

_“You’re drunk.” He said, and gave me a reproachful peck on the lips. I wagged a finger at him._

_“No.” I rolled on the wall, taking a couple of ginger steps. Henry caught me, turning me so that my face was against the brick, his hands on my hips, his lips on my neck. “What can you believe in if you don’t believe in love?” I whispered. Henry groaned._

_“Jason, can’t you just take a nice long fuck and let it go?”_

_“Tell me,” I murmured. I closed my eyes, feeling his hands on my arse cheeks. He sighed against my hair._

_“I believe in prolonged duration in the senses, alright Jason?” He sounded like he was quoting from somewhere, it wasn’t till years later I knew it was Jim Morrison from the Doors. I wondered sometimes later why Henry knew it. Hell, Henry probably just watched the movie because he thought Val Kilmer was hot. “I believe,” He tongue traced the edge of my ear, and he paused, and he became more serious. I felt his cheek against mine. His hands, I knew, were tearing a condom packet. I could almost feel it ripping beneath my own fingers. This same old routine. “In addiction.” He gripped my hair with his hand, the other sliding on the condom. He yanked my head back and kissed my adams apple as he slid into me. I gasped, and he would have felt the gasp as it flew up and down my throat._

_“Fuck, oh fuck,”_

_“Shh…” He whispered, and I splayed my hands on the wall. He was establishing the rhythm. “Addiction, yes, addiction.” He repeated, his hands gripping my hips tight and then releasing with each thrust._

_“What else?” I said, my mouth dry, my lips parting almost seeming like and effort._

_“Associations.” He grunted. “Associations that form habits. Chemical triggers. Repetition training our body. Deadlier then Viagra,” He murmured, and I grinned. He was losing track of his words, the heat of the moment taking him over._

_“What else?”_

_“Fuck, what else, fuck, fucking? Fucking, always fucking you, my boy…”_

__  
“Brian, you’re so quiet.” Tod got dressed, throwing on clothes haphazardly. “You’ve been like this all week.” Brian shrugged, his arm thrown out above his head. He watched Tod dress lethargically, feeling in no hurry or rush. “I wish you’d tell me what was wrong, but I know that you won’t.” Tod gave Brian a pointed look.

 

“Why are you here?” Brian said suddenly, sitting up. Tod looked up confused.

 

“What the fuck do you mean?”

 

“Do you think we’re in love?” He said quickly. 

 

“Do you?” Tod snapped angrily back.

 

“I don’t know.” Brian said quietly, not taking his eyes from Tod. “I’ve been…”

 

“What?” Tod sat on the bed next to Brian, his longish blonde hair falling haphazardly over his face. Brain moistened his lips. “What’s going on?”

 

“Are you in love with me just to pass the time between college and real life?” Brian asked, his big brown eyes soft and unclear. His head was slightly bowed so he didn’t see the look of shock that passed over Tod’s face.

 

“I never said I was in,” Brian gave him a dull look that cut Tod off. “Maybe. I do love you, I think, if that’s what you want to hear. But I think, in all honesty, you’re with me just to pass the time, not the other way around.” Brian looked up, and he scanned Tod’s face for hurt or anger, but found only this calm sort of acceptance. Tod gave a small smile. “I always knew you were waiting for someone or something.”

 

“How come I never fucking did then?” Brian muttered. Tod laughed softly, and got up. He threw on his winter jacket, and then paused, his hand resting on his backpack.

 

“Just tell me honestly. Is it Michael?” 

 

“No, its not Mikey. Though it would be easier if it was.” Tod nodded. 

 

“You’re not leaving me though right? You’re not kicking me out?” Brian looked out at the city scape, frowning.

 

“No. I want you here.” Tod nodded.

 

“But not for much longer.” He said quietly, and came to stand behind Brian as though trying to see what he saw. “When you want me to go, I’ll go.” 

 

\- - -- - - 

 

“Brian,” Justin sounded surprised on the phone. “How are you?”

 

“Fuck that.” Brian’s voice was curt. “You’re going to fucking come meet me.” 

 

“Where?”

 

\- - - - 

 

“You haven’t changed much,” Justin said, glancing round the loft. His eyes ran over the couches, over the kitchen counters. Slight changes here and there. A new arm chair. A new dining table. TV looked bigger, and everyone knew bigger was better. He looked over at Brian, whose expression was dark.

 

“Yeah, I got a new doona for the bed, fucked an interior decorator, been a few years, how have you been, want a beer? Now that the niceties are over,” Brian said angrily, squaring his jaw. “How the fuck dare you come back and lay that on me?”

 

Justin blinked. Brian shook his head, and went to the kitchen. He slammed open the kitchen draws, and pulled out the book. He shook it in the air. 

 

“More fucking importantly, why the fuck did you leave me then? Huh?” He advanced on Justin. Justin flinched, and Brian halted, about five steps between them.

 

“I think I made it pretty apparent. I’m sorry I don’t have another book to write about it.” Justin said snakily. Brian nodded as though taking Justin’s point on board, and then hurled the book at Justin. It flew over his shoulder but Justin ducked anyway. “What the fuck Brian?” 

 

“Fucking lies and excuses and a whole lot of bullshit.” Brian said, pointing at the book. “With anyone else, that might have passed. But you know what I read? A whole lot of justification and crap and not one inch of the truth. So you fucking tell me. Tell the goddamn truth.”

 

“The truth?” Justin folded his arms. He even fucking pouted. “Maybe the truth is that I didn’t want this to be my life anymore. I didn’t want to spend my youth being dicked around by you.” He glanced around the loft and then back at Brian.

 

“That’s fucking weak and you know it.” Brian spat at Justin. 

 

“Weak?” Justin echoed the word and then laughed. “When have I ever been anything but weak when it comes to you? I was weak when I fell in love with you. I was weak when I let you fuck around with my life without me once asking you for anything.”

 

“You never asked ME for anything?” Brian spat sarcastically. 

 

“No. I didn’t. I let you treat me like shit, and I never demanded anything of you. Not anything that couldn’t be bought or that couldn’t found for the price of a beer at Babylon. Not what I needed.” Justin shook his head, and he looked upwards for a second, his eyes becoming distant. “You know, I admit it. I was weak leaving, but not as weak as staying would have been. But five years taught me it wasn’t you. It wasn’t you that was wrong. It was me. I wasn’t asking you for it. You know, you find the same people wherever you go? The same people to treat you like shit over and over again, the same…” He paused, trailing off. These words sounded thin suddenly

 

And he looked at Brian.

 

“Bullshit.” Brian said quietly.

 

“Yeah? Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I don’t think you know. I don’t think you have the answers.” Justin sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I put you through all this again. I just…” He looked around. “What life was there for me here? It was like I stepped out of my life when I met you. Stepped into yours. And it had been so long I didn’t know if I could step back out of it. Whether it was always going to be… this.” He trailed off again. “Whether I was always going to be an intruder.”

 

“You’re an idiot.” Brian said angrily. “You really are you know that?”

 

“I know. Yeah, god do I know.” Justin sighed. 

 

“No you don’t. You didn’t want to be an intruder? Guess what? You weren’t. I wanted you here. Alright? And you wanted to be gone.” The last word rang out in the apartment. Justin surprisingly broke into a smile, bitter, but a smile, and shook his head.

 

“Gone. Yes. Maybe that. But I didn’t want it to be over. I thought… I didn’t think it would end. It wasn’t till you left, after those three weeks, that I realised. For you it was over.” Justin closed his eyes for a moment and didn’t seem the look of mild horror that passed over Brian’s face.

 

“You left. You left me twice.” He said, but his voice sounded thin. It had been Justin’s choice. It had to have been.

 

“I was what, twenty three? I was seventeen when I met you. What the fuck did I know?” Justin looked up, clear eyed and beautiful as he always was. Even with tears in his eyes, he was beautiful. “But you let it be over. When I stopped pushing, you let it be over.” Brian’s lips thinned as he glared back at Justin, denying… what?

 

“Fuck that.” He said savagely. “It’s still not over.” He grabbed Justin behind the neck, and kissed him. 

\- - - - - - 

He kissed him for the last five years. He kissed him for all those nights on pills when Justin hadn’t been there. For all those times he woke up in the night, and Justin’s body wasn’t there for him. For those unanswered phone calls. For the pain and the anger and for all the shit that had happened while Justin hadn’t been there to comfort him.

 

And for how much he’d missed him.

 

He undid the buttons of that winter coat, eager to feel the skin beneath, yanking the t-shirt over the boys head, and throwing it away. He wrapped his arms around Justin’s back, pulling the body against his, his lips never straying far from Justin’s. Not while he could help it. 

 

Justin helped Brian pull off his own shirt, and Brian nearly ached to feel Justin’s hands on his chest. He pulled the boy up around his waist, those legs wrapping around him so easily, responding to Brian’s unvoiced need. 

 

He kissed Justin’s neck, along the adam’s apple and down the throat, while Justin’s head leant against the top of his. Brian carried him to the bedroom, up those steps that suddenly seemed so difficult to climb. But there was Justin’s lips. Justin’s heat against his. 

 

Justin fell back on the bed, and Brian hastily undid the buckle of Justin’s belt. He yanked off Justin’s tight jeans, and then halted. Justin pushed himself up on his elbows, and stared at Brian. Brian, staring at him. That body exposed to him like he never thought it would be again. Justin gave a small smile, and Brian kissed him again, lunging in, one hand on either side of the boys face. He slipped his hand under Justin’s boxers, god he wished the boy had been wearing those tidy-whities like the old days, and he felt Justin moan against his lips.

 

They were slower now, Justin running his hand over Brian’s forehead, sweeping away the hairs. Brian sat back to undo his own jeans, and without removing his eyes from Justin’s, reached to the condom and the lube. There was quiet, and slowly Brian hooked Justin’s legs over his shoulders, his eyes calm, waiting.

 

Justin took the condom and opened it. Almost hesitantly he leant forward and slid it over Brian. Brian’s face wavered for a moment with uncertainty. His grabbed Justin’s hand, that hand, and he held it for a moment, gazing at the boy as though trying to confirm it was the same boy, the same one he had known so long ago.

 

Then he slid in, and they both gasped.

 

Brian froze, deep in Justin, but not deep enough, the look of pain and shock exquisite on Justin’s face. Brian bowed his head, feeling this moment for a second, the heat of Justin around him, and then, shuddering, moved forward, to kiss Justin’s lips.

 

Deeper. Deeper. 

 

Too deep.

\- - - -- - - -

 

Justin’s hand rested possessively on Brian’s back, Brian’s face buried in the pillow and his shoulder. Everything was connected. Brian’s leg rested comfortably between Justin’s, his weight heavy yet comforting on Justin.

 

Daphne had been wrong. There was nothing skinny about Brian. He was perfectly in proportion, beautifully so, his body so lithe and strong that Justin could feel every muscle, each one relaxed against him.

 

He closed his eyes, and slept.

 

And it seemed in that moment that the last five years where just pretend, a game that had brought him back here, where he belonged, holding his man.


	9. Under Blue Neon

Author note: Thanks for all the lovely review guys!

* * *

Brian tried to fall back asleep. He tried and he failed. He knew it was Justin he was holding, and he knew every curve of that body now as though he had never been parted from it. He could feel his breathe blowing the hairs on Justin’s neck just as he could feel each breathe Justin pulled in. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then slowly extracted himself. 

 

He sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for Justin to wake. Wanting this moment of silence to be broken. He stared at his hands. Last night, god last night, they had known what to do; they had known what he wanted. But now they gave him no such direction.

 

He didn’t want to be here when Justin woke up.

 

He staggered into the bedroom, and peered at his face in the mirror. 

 

He remembered shaving, Justin standing behind him, waiting. 

_  
“Justin, either you move or I’ll slit my throat with this thing,” Brian growled, his hands shaking the razor over the sink. Justin tilted his head, pouting._

_“You’re wasting water.” Brian spun around, his face still half covered in the shaving cream._

_“What are you, eight? Who the fuck cares?” He growled it at Justin, and then his face hardened, but this time with desire. “Fine, you think I’m not paying attention to you? Turn the fuck around,”  
_

 

It was as though he saw his face age, from that moment, to now. 

 

God what was he doing? 

 

Five years had worn him down, they had been much crueller to him then they had been to Justin. How could this body, growing older with every passing second, hold on to Justin, if it hadn’t been able to hold him back then?

 

He didn’t know what he wanted, and wanting everything and nothing at the same time hurts. It hurts like a bitch.

 

He went back to the bedroom, watching Justin’s sleeping form, and his eyes looked so tired, so tired and haunted.

\- - - - - -

Justin woke with a groan. Light was filtering in through the windows, and he was too hot. He flung off the doona, his eyes closing for five seconds before they blinked open again.

 

He was alone in the bed. 

 

He got up quickly, reaching for his clothing. His pants were at the end of the bed, and he yanked them on, not bothering to search for underwear. They always seemed to get lost. He padded out of the bedroom into the lounge, pulling on his singlet.

 

The loft was empty. 

 

He hesitated, and then saw the note on the metal door. He rolled his eyes and made for it. 

Fucking coward.

 

He folded his arms as he read it.

 

Jus, had to go to work, will talk. Last night definitely fucked up the ending to your book, huh? Brian.

 

“Alright arsehole,” Justin said, determination hedging his voice. “You want to put me through the ropes.” He shook his head, and, pulling the note off, shoved it into his pocket.

 

\- - - - - 

“Brian, is that you?” Brian dropped his briefcase, confusion on his face.

“Tod? What are you doing back? I thought the camping trip went till Thursday.” Tod appeared out of the bedroom, mud and dust still on his face. Brian pulled a face at the sight of him, but didn’t recoil from a kiss.

 

“Bruce got bitten by some rare spider or something, so we all had to come back to take him to hospital. It was pretty scary actually.” Tod said, dusting his hands on his jeans. Brian pulled a face.

 

“Oh, did the big bad spider scare you?” He asked, and received and jab in the waist. 

 

“Fuck off. I can see you had a bit of a time while I was away,” Tod said, pulling the bottom sheet off the bed. Brian grimaced, leaning against the doorway, watching Tod work. “I’m not sleeping in some random’s cum thank you very much.”

 

“Sorry.” Brian quietly from the doorway. For some reason he expected Tod to know, to realise as he held those sheets, to turn around, eyes wide like some terrible scene in a move. To know.

 

Tod nodded, and turned, a tired grin on his face.

 

“Will you order some take out? I’m starved.”

 

\- - - - -

“Alright, alright,” Tod said, picking up the next tequila shot. “The fuck on the dining table after you landed the Backers deal.” Brian scrunched up his noise briefly as he remembered.

 

“I give it a three.” They clinked shot glasses, and each licked their wrist before downing the shot, then bit the lemon. Brian bit of the pieces, swallowing all the flesh of the lemon with only a brief closing of the eyes and a grimace. Tod on the other hand poked out his tongue and shuddered.

 

“Blurgh.” 

 

“What about the fuck on Soaps and Studs night last year?”

 

“Two.”

 

“What? Two?”

 

“Brian, you were off your head. You spent five minutes telling me you usually didn’t pick up men, and that it was only because I looked like your brothers uncle who was Mexican that you were hitting on me at all.” Tod said, trying to hold back his laughter. Brian’s face dropped, and he opened his mouth in a silent denial.

 

“Bullshit.”

 

“I swear on my mothers grave.” Tod said, holding a hand to his heart, falling slightly to the side as he did so and steadying himself on the wooden floor. Brian leant back against the base of the couch and waved him away.

 

“The fuck after Debbie’s wedding?” Brian grinned and leaned forward.

 

“What about at Debbie’s wedding?” Tod nodded, unable to stop his smile.

 

“Fine, fine, your’s is better.”

 

“On Ben and Michael’s couch last week?”

 

“Four. Fuck, four and a half.” Tod said, but then his face sobered. “Our first fuck was there. At that party.” Brian tilted his head, looking away, hiding his reaction. Then his eyes flickered back to Tod’s face, his eyes searching. Tod reached for another shot.

 

“Yeah, it was.” Brian said, and clinked the glasses together. Another night, another party. Brian had fucked Tod against the white tiles of Michael’s bathroom, in between the speeches and the cake for Ben’s birthday. Then he’d walked out, kissed Debbie on the check, and sang happy birthday.

 

“Blurgh.” Tod repeated, shaking his head. “You know, if I’d never chosen to do that class with Ben, I never would have met you.”

 

“And I never would have been accused of poaching students” Brian joked. Tod pulled a disbelieving face.

 

“As if you’ve never been accused of that before.” Brian’s smile faded, at the unknowing truth in Tod’s statement. Tod caught the sobering look on Brian’s face, and it had been there too often recently. He lowered his eyes.

 

“Okay. Best fuck. Not just with me, of all the fucks.” Brian caught the seriousness in the boy’s voice. The challenge in it.

 

“You first.” 

 

“Alright. Went I was backpacking in Europe, I met this guy, this artist, near the south of France. Me and a few friends stayed at his place with his wife and a few of their friends. One morning, I get up early, write a bit of crappy poetry out in the first bit of sunlight, and end up fucking the guy with the wife on the famous purple hills. It was one of those moments you remember. It was better then of my crappy poetry.” Tod said, raising an eyebrow. Brian bit his bottom lip. Of course he knew his answer.

 

“The night Gus was born.” Brian said his eyes unwavering, almost defiant. That night with Justin, his eyes so fearful, as Brian guided him through his first fuck. First fuck yes, but a first for Brian too. He had surprised even himself at how gentle he could be, at how aware he was of Justin, of every movement of that seventeen year old skin. That amazing skin that made Brian remember why he’d put up those damn blue lights in the first place, so white it nearly hurt his eyes. He known instinctively when Justin was going to come, from the flush of red that suddenly swelled beneath that skin, and he could still remember Justin’s breath, so flustered, yet his eyes so calm. It was that he remembered, even more then the boy trembling as he slid into him, his gasp of pain. Shit, Brian remembered it all. He even remembered cursing I love you as he shot. But of course he didn’t say that. He tilted his head. “I fucked a virgin so tight that I thought I was going to die.” Tod laughed, and then rolled his eyes, not buying the typical Brian Kinney bullshit.

 

“Who was he?” Tod asked, somehow aware of some emotional upheaval in Brian.

 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

 

He hooked a hand behind Tod’s neck, slower then he had with Justin, and pulled him in for a kiss. The kiss deepened, and Brian tried to pull Tod’s body to him, upsetting the row of shot glasses, full and empty, between them.

 

“Fuck.” Tod said, whipping his hand on his pants. Brian laughed, and pushed Tod back.

 

“Fuck it. Let’s see how fucking in a pool of Tequila ranks.” He growled.

 

He didn’t hear the click of the key in the lock, but he did hear the slide of the metal door. The men broke apart, surprised, and looked up to who was entering the apartment.

 

“Hey, I thought I’d see if you’d changed the…” Justin looked up from juggling his keys and his coffee cup in his hand, to Tod and Brian on the floor. His grinning face froze, and his eyes went from the take out, to the shot glasses, to Brian again. “Locks on me.” He finished haltingly. His mouth fell open slightly into that famous Justin Taylor pout, as he tried to comprehend the scene.


	10. Under Blue Neon

Brian got up wiping his hands on his jeans, and Tod hesitantly did the same. Brian put his hand over his mouth, his fingers wiping at the edges, and then he glanced back at Tod, and then at Justin again.

 

“Hi, I’m Tod,” Tod said, pushing past Brian, breaking the silence. He gave a brief smile, his hands shoved in his pockets. Brian looked away, his eyes wide, and he drummed his fingers on his lips, unable to cover a disbelieving and pissed off smile.

 

“I’m,” Justin nodded and pursed his lips before finishing. He looked over at Brian with such annoyance in his eyes. “Justin. Brian’s probably told you about me, and…” He broke of. “The book.” He finished rather lamely. Tod glanced back at Brian and then at Justin again, and shook his head.

 

“Sorry, Brian’s never mentioned you before.” Both men now turned to look at Brian, who was shaking his head at this turn of events. Finally he seemed to pull himself together, and he gave a false, forced smile.

 

“Tod, Justin is my ex, and he’s…” He looked at Justin for inspiration. Pretty much fucking up my life, seemed the most appropriate answer. “Visiting.” Tod’s eye brows furrowed, and Brian knew he was in shit. Tod was not buying this, not buying anything except the tension in the air. “And Tod lives with me. He has for the past three years.”

 

“Three years?” Justin repeated with disbelieve. He shook his head. “Fuck I couldn’t even convince you to buy a new shower curtain.” He licked his lips, glowering at Brian. Tod nodded, as though something had been confirmed.

 

“So this is him. The one that’s not Mikey,” He said rather cryptically to Brian. “The one no one would tell me about. Even fucking gossip queen Emmett wouldn’t talk to me about you.” He looked up at Justin as he said it and then shook his head. He paused, analysing Brian’s reactions, and he said the next words as though they were the logical conclusion to the clues he had just laid out. “The one I’ve been filling in for.” He said finally, and then bit his lip in self reprisal. “God, I knew there had to be someone. I mean you told me,” He was talking to Brian now. “You told me from the beginning. Not love. Not permanent. That you weren’t doing that. Again. Fuck, you might have well as said I was just filling his shoes, so you had someone to fuck when you came home.”

 

“Tod,” Brian shook his head, and made to touch the boy. Justin jumped and Tod laughed as he saw this, shaking Brian off. 

 

“Is it time?” Tod said suddenly, looking long and hard at Brian. Brian looked away. 

 

“Tod, I…” He broke of, still shaking his head. Tod nodded.

 

“No, I get it, Brian. It’s alright. Not a long term deal right? Pit stop between college, and” He looked at Justin, and blinked as though trying to correlate him into this sentence. Whatever he saw, he couldn’t capture in words, and as he looked back at Brian, he smiled bitterly. He finally got it. What had always been there between him and Brian, that had stopped necessity and habit becoming anything else. He had been right. Brian had been waiting, whether he knew it or not.

 

“I’ll stay at Vince’s, and then I’ll get my things later. You too probably have a lot to talk about.” He touched Brian’s cheek, and Justin looked away. Tod saw it, and he kissed Brian’s cheek lingeringly, knowing this was the last moment for him. 

 

For him and Brian.

 

He walked past Justin without another word. 

 

Brian was still staring at some spot on the couch as the mental door clang shut. He jolted and looked up at Justin. He sighed and clenched his fists at him.

 

“God fucking damn you Justin. God fucking damn you.”

 

“You’re fucking living with someone?” Justin said, his mouth dropping in wonder. “You? Brian fucking Kinney. The same old Kinney, same old loft, same old bloody life.” He mimicked Brian, and shook his head. He pressed his palms to his forehead. “So you meant it? You really did have someone waiting for you?”

 

“Yes.” Brian said softly, glancing around. He sighed and went to the kitchen, pulling out two short glasses, and pouring the Jack Daniels. He held one out but Justin just waved it away.

“And that’s what you meant about,” Justin broke off. He nodded, his face becoming steadily unhappy, the anger draining. “You’ve moved on. I shouldn’t have come back because…” Justin stopped as Brian slammed down the glass on the counter.

 

“I’ve moved on? You left.” He spat it again. “Was I meant to just…” He laughed as he tried to fathom the words. “Pretend? Wait? What, what did you expect Justin? You went to the big city of lights, and fucked and partied and loved and cried and everything else. And you did it without me. You forgot me.” He ended quietly. He finished his drink, and came around the counter to stand before Justin. “You thought I’d still be here, didn’t you? That everything would be the same, everything. Don’t you understand it can’t be?” Justin looked up, fear in his eyes.

 

“I did. I did leave, and did all those things, but I didn’t forget you Brian.” He tilted his head, and a smile came onto his face. It caressed Brian, and he exhaled, as though expelling so much tension. “Everyone, every man, I dated them because they weren’t you. Like Ethan, like Tony, like all of them. I dated them because they weren’t you, and they were what I wanted to want. And I did love them, I did, but…”

 

“Only to pass the time?” Brian said quietly, his lips thin as he stared at Justin.

 

“My love for them faded with time and with boredom, it just got worn away. But my love for you is like…” He shrugged, a smile forming on his face. “It feels like eternity, as needed and as enduring as my bones.” He grabbed Brian’s hand, who had looked away at this, anywhere but at Justin. “Please, let me say this to you.”

 

“Fuck this.” Brian said, and grabbed Justin around the waist. He kissed the boy, and Justin tried to escape, tried to pull his head back, but Brian held him tight till he succumbed. Brian yanked off the Justin’s t-shirt, throwing it to one side, and kissed his neck, his nipple ring, everything. Justin groaned. Brian sternly undid Justin’s pants, and turned him round, pushing him against the back of the sofa, leaning him over it. Justin closed his eyes, waiting, panting, feeling Brian’s hands on his arse and he knew he should stop him, he knew that Brian still wasn’t listening, still wasn’t admitting…

 

He felt Brian slide into him, and it changed everything. There was nothing but the feeling, the skin, and Brian. Always Brian.

\- - - - - 

 

“God Justin,” Brian swept the hair of the boys face, and laughed. “You can be so ridiculously romantic.” He said, only half joking. He sighed. “I don’t know what to do with you Justin. That’s the truth.” He got up, naked, and went into the kitchen, pouring another drink. Justin waited, as he re-ran what had just happened in his head. Brian leant on the counter, as though unaware of his nakedness, biting his lip. He stared at Justin, who stared back at him. Justin slowly blushed as he realised he was naked, fully extended on the floor. He got up, pulling on his pants. 

 

“I didn’t come back for this. You have to believe that.” Justin said with his head bowed. “I thought… I thought it was over.” Brian smiled as he remembered, and shook his head.

 

“Me too.” He said calmly.

 

“How could it not have been? After so long?” Justin leant on the other side of the counter, watching Brian’s face. “I thought we could be…”

 

“Civil?” Brian asked, with his old mischief.

 

“Adults. Non-sex adults.” Justin corrected, and embarrassed smile on his face.

 

“We just have different lives, don’t we?” Brian looked up at Justin as though actually searching for an answer. “You don’t live here anymore, you’ve got some other life I can’t even imagine, and there’s Tod, and Michael and everyone…”

 

“And a million excuses and lies and bullshit?” Justin said quietly. Brian nodded.

 

“Yeah, that too.”

 

“But this feels right too, doesn’t it?” Justin said, and reached out, to touch Brian’s hand. Brian looked at that hand, at Justin’s and his.

 

“I can’t promise anything.”

 

“I don’t expect anything.” Justin replied.

 

“Liar.” Brian said ruefully. Justin smiled faintly. “We can’t do this. Look at us. We’re just not meant to be. I’m…I’m fucked up,” There, he’d said it. Just a statement, just like any other. He was staring at the counter top, and then he looked up at Justin, his eyes clear. “I’m not going to be able to make everything all right for you. I wish I could.”

 

“I know.” 

 

“Do you?” He said suddenly forcefully. “You think you do, but you don’t. Look at how we’ve started. A schoolboy and the man who refused to grow up.” Justin laughed, and Brian gave a small smile. “An artist who couldn’t paint, and a cancer riddled thirty year old. We’re not a match made in heaven Justin.”

 

“Thirty?” Justin questioned doubtfully. Brian gave him a stern look.

 

“Thiry. I’m sticking with my answer.” Brian became serious again. “I just don’t think this can go any further then this.” Justin shook his head.

 

“You’re such a fucking wanker, Brian Kinney. You know that right?” Justin said, marvelling at Brian. 

 

“Justin…” Brian growled.

 

“You want me. You want me mind, body and soul. I know you do. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here, five years later, in exactly the same position. All I need for you to do is say it. Say it.” Justin ordered; his voice calm. Brian stared at him, affronted. He opened his mouth to refute him, but stoped, looking at Justin’s eyes. 

 

He tightened his lips, and then made up his mind.

 

“Stay.” He said quietly. “I want you to stay.”

 

“Good.” Justin said with the efficiency of a business man. He turned and picked up his t-shirt, pulling it over his head. Then he made for the door.

 

“Where the fuck are you going?” Brian said, not having moved. His face was rigid. To have given up what he had just, and to have it shrugged off…

 

“You think I’m staying for that then you’ve got to be fucking joking.” Justin said with a shake of the head. “It has to be different Brian. It’s all or nothing.”

 

“I can’t make you promises.” Brian repeated through clenched teeth. Justin laughed.

 

“Fuck, Brian. I’m about to leave. Again. Don’t you want to stop me?” 

 

“I can’t…” Brian hissed. He clenched his fists, and turned his back on Justin. “Fuck.” He slammed a fist into the wall, dinting the plaster. Justin watched this unmoved. Brian stood, seething for a second. “Alright. Fucking stay.” He looked up at Justin, and Justin could see his beautiful profile and the longing vulnerability in his eyes. The image on the front of his book flashed in his mind, and he knew. He knew he was right.

 

“Stay. Because I want you. And I want you here. And I want us. And because one day I’ll let you love me.” Justin nodded in recognition, of what those lines meant. Hell, he’d written them, he should. Brian stared at Justin, his face without any emotion, waiting. Justin took it in, breathed those words in, and smiled.

 

Yes.

 

Demands in love aren’t those rules, aren’t in those bed battles, aren’t in the day to day banter. They aren’t the promise of monogamy, or the possession of your partners kisses. They are this.

 

Brian had to acknowledge that it wasn’t just Justin who was in this relationship.

 

“You’re such an idiot.” Justin said quietly, laughing. “God, why didn’t you say that all those years ago?”

 

“Come here,” Brian said, closing his eyes, a smile on his face. Justin came, because he couldn’t not. Because he had to, and because he wanted to.

_  
Maybe he did these terrible and stupid things so that he could ask us to forgive him. He seemed to be forever searching for forgiveness, from what I don’t know. Maybe for who he was to begin with._

_But I never had forgiveness to give him, no matter how many times he hurt me. It just wasn’t in me. All there was was love, consuming, mind numbing, ball breaking, love._

__  
\- - - - -

“So, how is this going to work?”


	11. Under Blue Neon

Author note: Thanks to everyone for reading and the reviews, hope you enjoyed it! Happy watching of season five. XOXO Tinkabelle

* * *

“So, how is this going to work?” Brian said quietly, his hand on Justin’s lower back. Justin couldn’t see the expression on Brian’s face, could only feel the slight movement of those fingers. He glanced at the window, the night had set it. He felt the coolness of Brian’s lips as he kissed them, and he paused, sweeping his hand across Brian’s forehead, through his hair, trying to decode his eyes.

 

“I don’t know.” Justin said finally.

 

“Me here, you there. Visits. Fucking trips? What?” Brian said, and though his voice was almost cruel, Justin could feel his hand still on his back as he waited for an answer. Justin ran his fingers down Brian’s nose, over those lips, and then kissed that trail.

 

“God, I’ve missed your face.” Justin whispered. He ran his hand over Brian’s chest. If felt right. He knew this, he knew this body, and he understood those moans and the grunts. He remembered the times, the patterns that their bodies had played out so many times. He remembered this chest breathing. 

 

Brian grabbed his hand.

 

“Answer me.”

 

“I’ll come back.” And even as Justin breathed it, he knew that that was right. He had never left, really. His life in Hollywood suddenly seemed not very real. Café’s and restaurants, and bars, and faces. They already seemed like some far of memory, something he put behind him as firmly as when he had finished school, or when he had left home. Or when he had seen Brian from under that street lamp all those years ago. 

 

“And if we don’t work?” The words chilled Justin. He felt Brian’s fingers tracing a path on his back, as questioning as these words. Why did Brian suddenly expect him to have all the answers? Justin sighed, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted to see Brian’s face, to put a spot light to it so he could read every time facial movement, understand it.

 

“I don’t know.” Brian looked up, and he pushed Justin onto his back, pinning his hands above his head. He kissed him, and then stared down at him as though trying to solve a puzzle.

 

“You’ll give it all up, all of it, for something you don’t know if it will work?” Brian said, and Justin smiled at the disbelieve in Brian’s voice. Didn’t he know, did he still not know?

 

“I think most of the gay world would give up all their earthly possessions for one night in your bed.” Justin joked, and then he smiled ruefully, and he became serious. “I can’t think about us not working Brian. But I do know this. I put half the fucking continent between us and yet I’m still here, in this same place. After all these years. That has to mean something.” Brian’s face was still stern, and he stared at Justin, still not understanding, not sure if he’d ever understand this beautiful blonde creature below him. Justin wrapped his arms around Brian’s neck and kissed him, pulling him flat against his body. Brian buried his face in the boy’s neck, and he felt Justin’s hand’s on his shoulder blade, felt him wrapping around him

 

“And what if it doesn’t? What if it means nothing?” Brian said, pulling away suddenly. “What if I can’t…” He broke off, his eyes becoming clouded.

 

“Keep me?” Justin said softly. “Make me stay. Bend me to your wicked will?” He broke into a grin, and touched Brian’s cheek. Brian’s gave him a sly but curious look. “Brian, we’ll make it mean something. You’ll piss me off and some days you’ll want to kick the shit out of me. We’ll fight and we’ll bitch and we’ll fuck, and every minute will be more valuable then a year away from you. Every minute with you is worth it Brian.” Justin stroked Brian’s face. “And if you ask me why I’ll sock you so hard in the stomach that you’ll feel like you’ve done two million sit ups.” Brian grinned, and shook his head.

 

“Alright. So what you’re telling me is…?” He left a lingering pause. 

 

“I’m telling you I don’t know how it’s going to work. But it is.”

_  
“How do you know?” I mumbled against his skin. He seemed frozen against me, and I could feel the slowness with which he raised his hand to gently rest it on my hair. I could feel my hand pulsating with pain and I could feel those hot tears already blooming in my eyes. I couldn’t cry in front of him, not again._

_“Trust me, alright? Somehow, it’s going to be alright.” And there was a surety in his voice, a different confidence from that which exuded from him on the floor of Babylon. This was the sort of confidence which comes from your bones, just as you know the sun will rise each day, and burnout each night._

_“You promise?” I asked because I knew he hated to make promises he couldn’t keep. He hated being anything but cruelly truthful._

_“I promise, Jason, I promise.”  
_

 

\- - - - - 

“You are fucking joking me.” Michael said as Emmett whistled under his breathe.

 

“Um, excuse me boys, when did we get sucked into a time warp?” Emmett said, an unstoppable grin spreading across his face. Brian and Justin, kissing, in the middle of the dance floor. Michael felt like someone had just taken all the wind out of him. 

 

“How the hell can he do that?” Michael said, turning his back on them. “How can he take him back?”

 

“Honey,” Emmett, said, patting Michael on the back. “I think what’s more important is how the hell did they make it five years?”

\- - - - -

“I missed this.” Justin whispered against Brian’s ear. He glanced over at Michael and Emmett again. “Being showed off by you.” Brian gave a small grin and kissed him. 

 

“When you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Brian said with a suggestive grin, and Justin laughed. He pushed Brian away slightly; letting the older man look him up and down, get the full impact of what was Justin Taylor.

 

“So you’ve got me have you?” He said, and Brian pulled him close again, hips on hips. He traced his thumb down Justin’s cheek, one finger on his top lip, and for that second it seemed the pumping music and all the bodies that surrounded them were just background, and they were nothing compared to the feeling of that thumb on Justin’s skin.

 

“Mind, body and soul right?” Brian said, and they both blinked, as if they realised they had stopped dancing, and slowly, their bodies picked up the beat again.

\- - - - 

 

“No, I’m not coming back.” Justin was chewing on his fingernail, and Brian looked up at him, trying to be casual, putting the groceries in the fridge. Justin cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder, putting his arms in his jumper. He pulled it over his head, still listening intently to what they other person was saying. “Julie, Julie!” He almost yelled the last word. Brian quickly looked down, so that Justin couldn’t see him watching. Justin walked towards the couch, unthinkingly moving away from Brian. Brian frowned.

 

“Look, I know all that. I know. And I’ll miss you. But… Yes. This is right. For now this is right.” That made Brian frown even more.

 

Brian didn’t listen to the end of the conversation, starring off into the space somewhere near the loft door. For now. He barely even moved when Justin hung up the phone, tossing it onto the couch. Justin threw out his arms and then wrapped them tightly around his chest. He gave Brian a forced smile. Brian flicked his eyes to him, taking him in. Justin shifted awkwardly under this scrutiny, taking a couple of steps towards the kitchen, and pushing himself forward on the kitchen counter, swaying slightly but not taking his eyes from Brian.

 

“That’s it. That’s the last of them.” Justin said with some mock finality, trying to break the silence, but it lingered for some moments after his words, as though unwilling to dissipate. Brian nodded, putting the last item in the cupboard.

 

“A lot of people.” Brian said quietly. Justin bit his lip, and nodded. 

 

“Yeah.” Brian moved around the kitchen bench, and took Justin in his arms, tightly, moving the hair on his forehead so he could look better into his eyes. Justin laughed, trying to push himself out of the embrace but Brian didn’t let go.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, of course.” Justin said, without hesitation, but Brian didn’t look any less serious. Justin tilted his head, and kissed Brian. Brian closed his eyes momentarily, but he did not deepen the kiss, tilting his head away from it slightly. “What?” Justin said, his eyes becoming wary. “You’re not backing out on me already are you? I thought I had a least two maybe three weeks before that.” He joked, and Brian smiled sadly. He released Justin, leaning against the counter, though keeping one hand on Justin’s hip. He looked off into the distance, and Justin was worried suddenly. He grabbed Brian’s hand, positioning himself solidly in front of him.

 

“Hey,” He said, demanding Brian’s attention. “This is what we both wanted right?”

 

“Justin. You’re giving up too much.” Brian said, as though chastising a child.

 

“But I’m getting a lot more.” Justin said, and Brian laughed. God, that intolerable naivety. It never left did it? He was still smiling when he looked back at Justin, his eyes soft.

 

“I don’t want to see you lose everything again. For me.” Brian touched Justin’s cheek, thoughtful. “Maybe…”

 

“What?” Justin grabbed Brian’s hand angrily from his cheek, and Brian flinched as though slapped. “God, you’re giving up already. I can’t believe you.” He said, turning from Brian, his face already flushed.

 

“Hey, hey,” Brian grabbed his shoulders, spinning him around. Justin struggled but Brian held him steady. “I’m not giving up. I’m just saying, maybe it shouldn’t be you” He paused to give Justin the full weight of his meaning. Justin seemed frozen for a moment and Brian continued. “Maybe it shouldn’t be you that gives it all up. I could,” The words were slow, as though they were being dragged. Justin suddenly remembered

 

_  
Brian looked up at him, his eyes soft in the dying day, and Justin’s words faltered. Justin knew that now wasn’t the time to tell him about Hollywood, about the offer. He knew now was one of maybe the last moments where he wouldn’t have told Brian. Were he wouldn’t have Brian pushing him away, telling him to go, telling him anything other then what he felt._

_What he didn’t expect was Brian to ask him to move in with him. God it felt like one of those universal jokes, where you are offered everything you ever wanted when you are least able to take it…  
_

 

“What Brian?” He said quietly.

 

“I could come with you. We could both go back.” Brian’s eyes closed for a moment and he took another breath, almost fearfully, as though he’d expected the world to explode after those words. “Maybe we,” Another pause. “Need not to be here. For this to work.” Those broken sentences, fragments that told so much through the words missing. Justin closed his eyes, breathing in not those words, but the tension in Brian, the vulnerability, and more then anything, this moment, where it was all laid stripped bare to him. Like it might never be again.

 

“Justin?”

 

“Brian you love it here.” Justin whispered, not opening his eyes, not disturbing this moment. He felt Brian’s fingers thread through his hair, trace the contours of his face, so lovingly, a gentleness that only Justin knew, free to do this because of Justin’s closed eyes.

 

“I know. But maybe something new would be better. Away from… the loft.” And all that this meant, for both of them. Pittsburgh, Babylon, Michael, Debbie, Kinnetic, fights, fucking in the backstreets,” Justin raised an eyebrow, “the diner, Lindsey, Gus…”

 

“What about Gus?” Justin said suddenly, his eyes flicking open. “You couldn’t…” Brian grabbed Justin’s hand, and Justin knew that face. It was resolved.

 

“Something more important has come up.” He stressed each word, and Justin smiled, remembering this old joke, looking down. And then Justin laughed, and shook his head.

 

“Maybe. But not now. I want to be here for now. With you, in the loft, the Pittsburgh.” Justin grinned as he realised what he was about to say. “I wanna come home Brian. I wanna come home to you.” He looked up, and he saw the relief and the thanks in Brian’s eyes. His smile widened, and he pulled Brian against him, crushing him into a hug. He felt Brian’s uncertainty, just has he had felt his vulnerability moments before, but he knew that this was right, and after a moment he felt Brian melt against him, giving against him, clinging to him as much as he clung to Brian.

\- - - - 

 

“I feel like you should be” Justin waved his free arm expansively, the other one drawing him close to Brian’s body as they walked down the uneven pavement of liberty avenue. Brian raised an eyebrow as he manoeuvred them through the other pedestrians. “I don’t know. Chasing my taxi to the airport to desperately stop me boarding some plane and flinging red roses at my feet while everyone claps. Or something like that.” Justin grinned at Brian’s rather disgusted look at this sentimentally.

 

“You’ve been in Hollywood too long, Sunshine.” Brian retorted, but not cruelly, looking forward. Justin’s grin broadened, and he ran a finger down Brian’s cheek, silently commanding him to stop walking.

 

“Too long?” Justin said with a grin, raising his eyebrows. Brian looked away, shaking his head. Justin gave him a probing look. “Too long away from you? Cause you fucking missed me, and thought about me all the time? Because you love me?” He asked jokingly, giving Brian a nudge in those rock hard abs, his smile getting bigger if that was possible.

 

“Ranting is the first signs of being delusional,” Brian said sweetly. Justin laughed, taking a step back so that Brian suddenly felt the loss of warmth, and miss it.

 

“Is it?” Brian pulled Justin firmly against his, and with gloved hands pushed his hair off his face, the coarse material running over Justin’s forehead. “You wouldn’t know anything about being delusional would you?”

 

“No,” Brian said, leaning in to kiss Justin.

 

“So you don’t love me?” 

 

“No,” 

 

“And didn’t spend the past five years pining for me?”

 

“No,”

 

“And you don’t have a raging hard on?”

 

“No,”

 

“Good, just checking,”

_  
So that’s my life. Dancing and fucking, arse fucking in particular, sex, violence, drugs, disease, lies, hustlers, fights, Hollywood, and him. Somehow he weaved it all together, pulling me into a world of beautiful dancing boys and dark half-understood temptations, and yet he made it beautiful. He made them all beautiful, all desirable, all proud._

_And he never apologised. Never asked me to be anything other then I was. Never loved me. Never made me stop loving him. Never could._

_And we fucked, and we fucked up more times then I can count, and somehow in all the craziness, we managed to find something real. Even if it was only for a second. In between the alcohol and the cigarettes, there was take out eaten on the floor, and kisses on the back of my neck, and someone washing my back in the shower, and secret smiles. There was it all, everything that lovers do._


End file.
